Disgusting Fan Girl
by thegamersdoll95
Summary: Rag Doll has spent most of her time preparing for if she ever met the Joker in person. Having become grossly fascinated with him in the past few months with all of his "performances", Doll has decided to do whatever it takes to become his main Hench-girl, and maybe even make him fall in love with her. But the Joker has no interest in this Disgusting Fan Girl...she's worthless.
1. Just Dropping In

**Disgusting Fan Girl **

_Alright…I'm ready for this. _Doll thought, taking several deep breaths. Her fall was approximately six feet to the railing on the walkway, and eight more to the floor below. All she had to do was make the land on the railing and spring off _without closing her eyes._ She checked her stockings for the hundredth time, making sure that her weapons were strapped securely underneath them, taking another deep breath.

All she had to do was make the landing, and hope that everything else would fall into place. If the goons just stood there, she would attack them herself and initiate the fight. Then, all she had to do was make it long enough to catch his eye. Then he would see that she was useful. Then he would accept her, and let her work for him. All she had to do…was survive.

_And if you don't make it…?_ Elise asked smugly, echoing in Doll's subconscious. _If I don't make it, I'll fight my way out or die trying. It will all. Be. Worth it._ The Rag Doll shook her head, her red dread-locks flinging this way and that as she regained focus, taking one more deep breath, squinting her eyes shut as tight as possible before opening them again, and then jumped from the air duct, arms out-stretched. She didn't even feel the pressure as she sprung from the railing, and did a small somersault before landing on the ground below, pulling her blades out mid-spin.

Her blood pounded as she was forced to make the first move, reaching out and slashing the first man in the throat. Then they swarmed her. She lashed out, this way and that, dodging as necessary, killing with almost perfect ease. Her practice had paid off; She could do this! The minutes passed slowly as she found herself trying to avoid one-on-one combat, knowing all too well that she might get snuck up on. She jumped in the air and flipped onto the back of one particularly muscular man and snapped his neck, then kicked out her bladed heels in a deadly spin.

_He's not noticing…_Elise sang in the back of Doll's mind, and she risked sneaking a look around her next kill. Elise was right. She couldn't even see him anywhere, and there was no way she would be able to keep fighting for long. Her muscles were beginning to burn… Ice shot through her veins as she realized that she might not make it out alive. She had wasted her one chance. He wasn't going to stop them. She was going to die in here.

Panic rising in her throat, Rag Doll gripped the blade tighter, slashed harder, breathed harder, _fought _harder. He had to notice. He had to at least see her before she collapsed. All this time couldn't have been wasted, it just _couldn't_! How cou-

And then she saw him, leaning against the railing on the second level, with his eyes dancing with glee. She was _entertaining_ him! Seeing this she smiled. The burning in her no longer mattered. He had _noticed_!

Soon he would stop them, and he would clap for her. Soon…

Any minute now he would keep her from being killed. He would be interested, fascinated… He would at the very least want to _use _her!

The panic returned two-fold. Elise laughed at her in their head, singing "I told you so" over and over. He was going to let her die!

"God Dammit, Joker, don't I look useful to you?!" She screamed, dropping her guard as she turned to face him. The Goon behind her grabbed her, wrapping one arm around her neck and the other around her waist. _Nice one,_ Elise remarked. Doll stared straight into the eyes of Gotham's Clown Prince as she sensed the goon behind her lifting his blade to her neck.

Then he lifted one single, gloved finger. Her heart skipped. The man behind her paused, holding the blade at her throat instead of killing her, while the Joker made his way slowly down the steps and over to her. She writhed gently in the man's grasp, feeling for any weak spots, but found none, and went calm again, watching the Clown Prince of Crime turn to face her.

The Clown cocked his head towards her, waving his knife to punctuate each word. "Did I hear you right? You want to look _useful_ to me?" It was actually quite comical, that this little girl had broken into his hide-out, and slaughtered six of his men, just to look _useful_. She could barely be over twenty.

She bit her red painted lips and nodded as much as the goons grip would allow. "And here I thought you were a new vigilante!" The clown laughed grabbing her face with one hand and shaking her. "Your just too darn cute to be a villain-wanna-be!" He baby talked. Despite his attempts to intimidate her though, Doll felt her heart melting.

Then his face grew suddenly dark. He pressed the tip of his knife under her chin. "Why shouldn't I kill you right now?" He growled, the look on his face pure, angry, disgust.

**Any ideas for the next chapter? Let me know what you think about what I've got so far, I'm having a hard time with the Joker's character, I just really wanted to see a "Fan girl meets Joker and how would he really react?" Kind of story line, instead of just having them just fall in love or anything like that. Be brutal! Thanks!**


	2. Fearless

"_You're so beautiful…"_

_Finally…_

_Smile._

_Sigh._

_Nod._

_Feel him…_

_He's so close…_

_His warm breath…_

_His scarred lips…_

"_I love you Elise…"_

"_Wait...what?"_

_Why Elise?_

_Why does he love _Elise_?_

_WHY DO THEY ALWAYS LOVE _ELISE?!

Doll woke up coughing, clutching her stomach as she curled inward on the cold concrete floor. A bruise was already forming, she knew. Slowly she lifted her eyes to the foot poised to kick her again, and she rolled onto her back. She hoped to look up and see Joker in his signature suit, staring down at her with his wicked smile, but her eyes met worn, greasy jeans…a tattered grey wife beater…and a clown masked face.

The goons hand tightened around the crow bar in his hand, and he stepped back, ready to strike her if she made any moves to attack him. "Get up, we're going somewhere." His voice was dripping with hatred. Rag Doll knew that he wanted to kick her again, but didn't because he didn't know how she'd react. Slowly she got up and followed, just a step ahead of him.

"Did I kill one of your friends last night?" She asked sadly as he poked her left side, signaling which way for her to turn.

"People like me don't have friends." He grunted.

"But you were close to one of them. Fond of them." She said matter-of-fact like, turning her head towards him as she walked. "I _am_ sorry that I did that. I ju-."

"Get in the van."

She looked at the man's stance, and at the cold blue eyes behind the mask. The dead stare he was giving her seemed to burn through the rubber clown face. With a sigh, Rag Doll climbed into the back of the van and sat cross-legged on the dusty metal floor. The van rumbled to a start and filled the silence as they took off.

"So, where are we going?" She called to the driver, but received no response.

_You can always talk to me…_Elise whispered playfully. Doll ignored her. Her face twisted with jealousy as she thought back to her dream. Joker had loved _her_ instead. Not doll…

_Oh….Baby Doll…_Elise cooed. _You're not still mad at me over that dream are you..? _

Rag Doll huffed and crossed her arms, pulling her knees up to give her feet a better grip and keep from sliding.

_It's only a dream Dolly…and besides…I can't help it that they love me more. Maybe it's because I'm not _crazy_ like you are…_ The harsh laughter rang in the back of her mind.

"YES. YOU. ARE!" Doll screamed suddenly, startling the driver and the two other goons in the back with her. She snarled at them as they gave each other worried looks and snuck cautioned glances at her. Of course Elise was as crazy as Doll was. She knew it too. Everyone was crazy like her, they were just ashamed of it. Everyone but Joker…

Doll smiled, and leaned her head back. Calm again as she remembered the shrill, hyena-like laughter of the Joker that she had heard so many times on the news. For the rest of the ride she stayed like that, eyes closed and smiling. Then the van doors were pulled open again and the two goons jumped out, standing by each side and patiently waiting for her to follow, though she still sat with her eyes closed.

"What are you two waiting for? Just grab the bitch." A third man said angrily, appearing at the back and grabbing her arm.

Doll gasped and shrieked with surprise as she was dragged out of the vehicle and hurriedly put her feet beneath her before the fell onto the ground outside; before her stood the massive, poorly maintained Arkham Asylum. Her eyes widened.

"What are we doing here? " She asked in a panic. "Joker could have just killed me if he had wanted, right? Please don't take me in there! I can't go back, I can't!"

"Shut-up!" She shrieked as the goon shook her angrily, dragging her off to the side of the building and down a small hill.

Rag Doll bit her lip, feeling Elise place her hand over her mouth in an attempt to help, and both of them tried not to give in to the rising fear, then all at once she was calm. Limp in the hold of the goon as he pulled her into the asylum through a back door, her legs moving just enough to keep up.

After a series of twists and turns in the lower rooms of the asylum, Elise and Rag Doll found themselves being thrown into a room and strapped into an old metal chair. Across from her sat Doctor Crane. She remembered seeing him in the halls before, but had never had to be one of his patients. Supposedly he only handled mob members, and severe nut-jobs, and she just wasn't that crazy to be put in his care.

Now, apparently she was.

"Hello Ms. Hancock." Dr. Crane said courteously, fumbling with his case. He ignored her groan at the name they had given her during her last stay. "It has been brought to my attention that you may have been in need of my care, and I apologize for not doing anything sooner. I have brought you here so that I may put you through a series of tests and see just how serious your condition has become." He folded his hands and looked at her, head cocked to the side innocently. He pressed his lips together for a second, glanced down at his suitcase, and readjusted.

She just sat there quietly, watching him with her green eyes. "Dr. Crane, why was I brought here by Joker's men if you are to test my condition…? You are making no sense."

Dr. Crane smiled professionally. "You are much too cunning a patient, Elise."

"I AM NOT ELISE!" She shouted suddenly, her voice rough. Dr. Crane didn't even flinch. He only stared calmly.

For a long time he had seen this girl in the halls of Arkham Asylum, the uniqueness of her character was enough to pique his interest, but never was he given the opportunity to test her. After her disappearance he thought he might never know, but now here she was, having been brought to him by the Joker, of all people.

Why he had brought her was beyond him. Maybe he just wanted to watch her scream; maybe he wanted to know how to break her. Scare Crow hadn't asked. He kept his face emotionless as he wondered again about her fears, but not just what they were-how she _handled_ them. Again, he glanced at his suitcase.

He took in her fiery green eyes, her heavy breathing, her irritated pout…

"Ms. Hancock we're going to do a little experiment." He clicked open the suit case and pulled it towards himself, pulling out his signature mask. "Now take a deep, slow breath, and relax."

A soft green cloud sprayed out from the suit case and enveloped Rag Doll as she breathed in. Was this supposed to calm her?

Scarecrow stood up, signaling to Joker to walk over from where he hid in the shadowed corners of the room. The girl only sat there, sitting quietly, with wide eyes. Tears slowly slipped down her face, and her lower lip just barely quivered, almost unnoticeably, but she didn't scream. She didn't struggle or move away from him. Upon seeing Joker though, as he walked up to her laughing loudly, she leaned as close towards him as her restraints would allow. Her face looked pleading.

Suddenly, the girls head dropped, her eyes closed, and she went completely limp. When her eyes reopened, seconds later, they were half-lidded, uncaring, and not even the slightest bit scared. She smiled slightly at something, and that was all.

"Dr. Crane, that mask suits you. You should wear it more often."

**I'm just kind of winging it right now, and I'm thinking of pulling in Scare Crow as a main character, who knows? But I still have no idea where to go with it or what to do. Let me know what YOU want to read! Please review!**


	3. Useless

"You want her? Keep her." Joker said, disinterested. He could see the intrigued look on Scare Crow's now unmasked face. After so long of watching, waiting for some sign of the gas to take its usual effect, the man still watched her as though he didn't want to miss a second. Behind the ice blue eyes, hundreds of different experiments ran through his head, all because of this girl.

Doll lifted her head, her eyes narrowing at the clown as she thought about the words he had just said. He ran his tongue over his scars. "Consider this my thanks for getting me out of the asylum, _Dr. Crane_."

"After everything I did for you already…?" The girl said slowly, almost menacingly in her daze. She had changed herself for him, became the Rag Doll for him, killed her _family_ for him…didn't he realize that?

"All you did was kill my men, sweetheart! That's not exactly a favor in my book." A grin stretched from ear to ear on his painted face. He rocked back and forth on his heels, then leaned over to her, whispering dramatically, "And there's no _use_ for a girl who can't be scared into obedience."

The soft tears streaking through her white make-up made him laugh.

She sobbed pitifully, "But I would never disobey you, Joker…"

He made his way for the door and ignored her. "Well, toodle-oo!"

"Joker." Crane said suddenly, his eyes never leaving the girl who's head followed the clown. "Thank you, for this…opportunity."

Rag Doll whimpered as the Joker left, his steps echoing in the empty hall.

The moments passed in silence. Jonathan Crane watched as Rag Doll's demeanor slowly shifted. Her sultry eyes widened, her mouth tightened into a sad pout and she began to fidget, no longer able to keep still.

"If I release you from the chair, can I trust you to come with me?" He asked, eyeing her for her reactions more than he was listening for her answer. He could see her mulling it over in her head, trying to find out which answer would have the best outcome.

_If I say yes, will he believe me?_

_Of course not, _Elise said appalled, _He's a psychologist, he's not an ignoramus._

_So then I can say no, and be honest regardless._

_But he'll be more watchful._

_Don't you watch the liars more though? Everyone's always more cautious around a liar._

The girl nodded from side to side, her dreads bouncing to the unheard points in her head.

_So then be honest. Honesty provides trust._

_Yes, it does._

She voiced her final answer, telling the doctor, that no, in fact he could not trust her to follow him.

The doctor smirked, and left the room. He made a point to leave the door open even though she was still strapped in the chair. She didn't hear him come in, but felt his fingers brush her hair aside from her neck, and a sudden prick. The room blurred. Spun. Rag Doll's eyes rolled up into the back of her head.

**Help me out and give me some more ideas! I know where we're headed now, I just don't know how we'll get there! **


	4. Beauty In Chaos

"**The most Beautiful things come from Chaos…"**

**-Anonymous**

Another shock ran through her. Her eyes went wide. She struggled for the briefest moment against the restraints that bound her to the gurney. Dr. Crane straightened his stance as her mouth opened as though she was about to scream, but before any sound came out her eyes rolled up into the back of her head…and she fell. The doctor bit his thumb in aggravation.

It had been almost a month since he had relocated the girl to the lab in the even lower chambers of Arkham Asylum. Twenty-six days of exposing her to the fear toxin every morning—of sending in his men to try and figure out how to truly make her panic, and he had only learned one thing about her: that just as she was about to lose control, just as the panic rose so far that she would _consider_ screaming, the fear became a trigger. Instead of being frightened by the hallucinations caused by the drug, she became languid, switching into an alter-ego…into the true, bloodthirsty, cunning, Rag Doll. He had lost three men already from the experiments themselves, two more when he sent in a group of eight to finally restrain her once more.

Jonathan tried to ignore it, but even he was un-nerved when she turned her head towards the two-way glass that separated him from her sterile-white confines, and trained her eyes at the exact spot that he stood. He knew that she couldn't really see him, but still…

The doctor reached his arm down, and pressed a finger to the small, square red button that would allow her to hear him.

"Good Morning, Ms. Hancock."

Sultry, green eyes rolled at the use of her name.

"I am not Ms. Hancock, _Dr. Crane._ I am not Elise, either. I am Rag Doll." She stressed the pronunciation of the name, her tongue curving almost seductively at 'Doll'. Then a satisfied smirk crossed her face and she looked back up at the ceiling.

Scare Crow smirked as well. He liked this side of her, as opposed to the other, more hyper and annoying side. He believed this side really was Rag Doll; her creation to help her deal with her memories.

"I apologize, _Ms. Doll_. Tell me—."

"How long do you plan to keep me locked up in here, Dr. Crane? My legs are beginning to ache… I need to stretch them."

"I'm afraid I can't do that right now, Elise." The doctor purposefully called her by her name, watching her face and body for the reaction he knew would come.

"I AM NOT ELISE." She said roughly, as though possessed. Her face squeezed up into a look of pure immense pain for a few seconds before slowly returning to her normal, sweet, serene expression. Her tense muscles slowly relaxed correspondingly.

"Of course, you're not…" He said to himself, not bothering to let her hear him. It made no sense. Although she showed obvious signs of schizophrenia, she lacked all of the characteristics. Instead of scared, she was bold. Instead of paranoid, she was oblivious. This was the only time when she would express heightened emotion for longer than a half-second. Then of course, he had only _personally_ seen her express three different emotions: Sorrow, anger, and indifference. He had been made aware that she was fascinated by the Joker, and that she had created the Rag Doll for him, but he was unable to study her behavior at that time.

Perhaps the secret to her behavior wasn't in the negative side of her emotional spectrum. He pondered on that for a while. It may even be hidden in her past-in who she was before she became Rag Doll. In order to access the memories of that part of her though, he would have to get her to accept that she once _was _Elise Hancock….but how?

"Dr. _Craaaaaannnneee._" He heard her whine suddenly, having already slipped back into her usual self. "I haven't eaten anything for _hours_! _I'm starviiing…_" Her stomach growled pointedly.

His lips curled as he listened to her. She was as annoying as that Harley Quinn that Joker kept with him. Still, he couldn't learn much from her by keeping her in a negative environment. He would have to see the positive side to her as well in order to fully understand why she reacted the way that she did to his toxin. His grimace worsened. Looking into the now wide and innocent eyes that bounced around the room, unable to stay trained in one spot for more than a second, he came to the conclusion that he would need to play a personal role in creating that positive atmosphere.

One of his men walked into the room with a plate of bread and a glass of water. Before he could enter the room, Scare Crow looked at him and shook his head, signaling for him to get something else. He instructed the man to get something a bit more tasteful, and filling.

He reached out and pressed the button again. "Ms. Doll, I am willing to make a deal with you."

"I don't want a deal, I want food…" the girl complained.

"It involves Joker."

That had worked. At the mention of the Clown Prince she froze and turned to look at the two-way glass, her eyes unfocused this time, as she was unsure of where to look.

"I'll do anything." She said softly, almost dreamily.

The doctor sat back and smiled at that. She _would_ do anything; he would make sure of that. He didn't say anything else for the next few minutes. By the time twenty minutes had passed the man had returned with a bag of McDonalds, explaining that there was a dollar hamburger and fries inside, and sweet tea inside the cup.

"_Thank_ you," Jonathan said sharply, taking the bag and drink and stepping passed the henchmen and going into the room himself.

He closed the door behind him with his foot, taking in the smile spreading across her face, and (placing the drink into the curve of the arm holding the bag of food), he drug a chair over next to the Rag Doll and sat. Her mouth visibly watered as she stared hungrily.

"Now…do _exactly_ as I say, and _I_ will personally…_help_ you win the Joker's trust." He gave her a practiced, professional smile.

"How will you do that..?" Rag Doll asked slowly, her eyes glued to the food.

"I will help you get close to, and kill, the ever heroic…Batman."

Red dread-locks flung rapidly as she nodded at him, her grin wide, her legs kicking as much as her binds would allow.

"Dr. Crane you're the greatest!" She squealed as he un-did the straps and handed her the McDonald's bag and drink, which she grabbed excitedly and sat up, stuffing her face with the fries.

This was going to be a long, painful experiment for both of them.


	5. Relocation

**I made this one longer than usual because of my two-day absence. I hope you like it! Review, and let me know where to go with it, and what you want to see! And...I'm considering her "raping" the Batman...*shudders* You better be happy if she does. (Lol) Enjoy Loves!**

"I don't see why I need a collar, Dr. Crane."

Crane looked over at her, walking beside him. Her rosy full lips puckered, green eyes downcast onto the concrete floor of the Asylum halls. He resisted the urge to snarl at the whine in her voice and pushed his glasses into place.

"You have killed fourteen men in the past two months, and yet you ask me why I feel the need to give you a shock collar? You're lucky to be walking around at all, with the way you slaughtered my men." The edges of his lips quirked up; it sounded like he cared about those men.

"Its not like you wouldn't have killed them yourself." She muttered. _Why do they always try to act so much better?_ Elise fumed, _He's not better than anyone._ "You hear me, _Doctor_? You're crazy just like _every. One. ELSE!_"

Dr. Crane stumbled backwards and quickly pressed and held the button to the shock collar. A shuddering breath escaped him, and he felt relief as he watched her writhe and tug at the collar, her jaw clenched and mouth on the verge of foaming. She had been so close to his face, so close to _him_. No one got close to him. Ever. He let go of the button hesitantly, quickly regaining his composure.

He watched as she released the collar, and her arms and head hung. Her knees bent awkwardly to hold her weight...

"Hello, Rag Doll." The doctor said pleasantly, and continued his walk, briskly. He heard her exasperated sigh as she fell in step beside him. He felt some of the previous irritation melt away. It was almost like he was walking with a willing partner than a captured _experiment._

A low chuckle escaped her throat.

"I'm learning about you too, Jonathan." She smiled, her head hung while she walked, taking in how smoothly he tried to look at her in the corner of his eye, while keeping his own face forward. "For example...you're skittish. Either you're scared of being touched, or you're scared of being hurt.."

Then she looked up at him, and reached a hand out too his face. Her eyes were glittering with dulled excitement as her hand slowly got closer. He tried so hard to keep his calm demeanor didn't he? She wanted to see him snap, just once. Maybe he'd stay that way, if he liked it.

She touched the side of his face and he cringed, but didn't stop her. In his eyes, she could see he despised her touch, because they widened ever so slightly. Did the doctor hope that he was showing some sign of trust in her? The mere fact that he was allowing her to meant he trusted her? Doll felt her hand twitch, poised to hurt him, but she didn't. She dropped her arm and looked at him.

"I am not a child. Don't misunderstand me." She spat, green eyes connected with blue.

They sat there in silence, watching each other before they resumed their walk. Scare Crow hoped she would stay this way for a while—the silence was nice.

...

They had gone even deeper into the ground below Arkham Asylum, and the space getting less and less developed, so that they were practically walking through a cave, on a concrete paved pathway. The Rag Doll stared open mouthed at the room that the doctor had led her to. It was hidden inside a rock wall. The inside of it however, had the blazing white walls of a hospital room, a small hospital bed was pushed into a corner, with a tiny side table with a Raggedy Ann lamp on it. The half of the ceiling opposite the bed had a huge net filled with different kinds of dolls, hanging so that she could reach them from where she stood. The floor was tiled but had red, shaggy rugs. And there was a closet.

The doors of the closet hung wide open showing her a different assortment of dresses and disguises. She walked over to it cautiously, turning once in the middle of the room. The doctor remained in the doorway, watching her reaction. This was yet another extension of 'trust'. He made sure to look around the room as well, so as not to make her uneasy. He wanted her to think that this was for her, not the experiment.

He watched as she reached out to each outfit, each costume, each wig, lightly fingering the hair on each one. She looked at the long blonde wig, and picked it up, along with the wig cap. All of her make-up had worn off in the month that she had been with him, leaving the human girls face out in the open. Slowly, she put on the wig, and turned her head. "It looks so real." He heard her whisper, as she touched each side of her face. _This must have been Elise... _The doctor thought, glancing at the camera behind him.

Her eyes grew wide suddenly, and her head dropped as though she were ashamed. She tore the wig from her head, but didn't put it down. "I thought I was supposed to be following orders of some kind, Doctor. Why am I in here, in this room?"

Crane looked at the Raggedy Ann lamp that he had personally picked out. "I felt that you needed a base of some sort. Somewhere that you would feel at home. While you are in my care, I _do _plan to treat you well."

"Do you give your men rooms like this?"

He chuckled at this. As much as she didn't want to, she was actually _searching_ for a reason to trust him. Asking him questions and looking for a reason to believe him. The smile quirked at his lips was mocking, but he doubted she could tell. "No, I don't. My men don't require homes like this, and they are no where near as useful as you are."

Rag Doll blushed, but then twitched her head sharply to the side and regained her composure. He tried so hard to look calm and collected. To look _normal. _People like him, were disgusting. Just looking at him the way he was made her sick. And here he was trying to make her trust him, but for what? He already gave her a reason to listen to him, and a reason not to attack him. Since when the hell did a villain need trust?

Scare Crow tried not to laugh as he saw each thought bleed into her face. He tried to stay calm because that was his mask to the humans. She thought he hid his insanity to be normal? And that he would enjoy that? It was too much. He turned and left the room. Soon, he would show the Rag Doll just how _crazy_ he could be, but right now he had things to do.

**Let's take a brief intermission here, and imagine ourselves a Redneck Dr. Crane. Seeing as I need a quick break from the story, I assume you do too. *Avoids bullets* Now, be done your brief imagination of the redneck Dr. Crane, and we shall continue our story. Thank you for time, and enjoy. **

**:3**

As Rag Doll had looked around the room, she had found various items scattered and hidden through out. In the back of the walk-in closet, she had already found a small mini-fridge hidden behind the bottom rack of clothes. In the pockets of one of the various coats, she had found a small pink cell-phone a text already received. It took her a moment to figure out how to open the text, having never handled a cell phone before, let alone touch screen.

After a few stressful minutes she finally opened it, seeing a picture of a crow. The name was also listed as Crow.

**This phone is monitored.**

**Attempt to call anyone**

**on this phone, and I will**

**know. However, you may**

**call me if you need anything.**

**-SC**

_What is his deal?_ Elise muttered, as Rag Doll closed the text and messed with the phone some more. "I don't know..." She said out loud, laying across the bed, legs bent. "Maybe he just really wants me to be comfortable. You know, how some people are all 'A comfortable captive is a compliant captive' and all. Like when in Tim Burton's remake of Alice, that guy asks the queen if she would rather be feared or loved. I bet that quote means something to Dr. Crane."

_You're acting like he cares about you._

"No I'm not," she muttered, playing a song she had managed to download. "I just think that, for someone so composed, he's not that bad." He reminded her of her best friend Liam, the calm composure, and ironic smiles at the most random times. Rag Doll smiled as she remembered the look in Liam's eyes when he died...so slowly... It was like she had finally gotten to know him for who he really was at that moment. Too bad her kill had been so sloppy.

_"The needles breaking your skin. The score is sinking in." _The words rang out in the quiet room, and she closed her eyes, singing along. She glanced over at the face paint she had found under the bed. She got up, picked up the paint, and began to apply it.

_ "It's all over for...you."_

The Doctor walked through the park, watching all of the little kids running around, and their parents grouped together watching them. He smirked. At any moment one of those parents might turn on their children. Maybe some of them already had. His blue eyes searched the faces of each one...that one. He watched the mother. Her smile and her wrinkles didn't match. She didn't smile much at home. The her movements were jerked, paranoid, she watched the other like she expected them to jump up and accuse her. _Disgusting._

He kept walking, fighting back the images of his own Grandmother. People like them were a waste. Looking around he saw a piece of paper stapled to a tree near-by: Bruce Wayne holds a charity event for orphaned children. It was a kids party that he planned to hold for them. He had kept his eye on the man for a while, noting that he always seemed to disappear from his parties and events suddenly, coincidentally when one of the top _villains_ had made an appearance. Well...now that he had his very own pet to play with, he might as well take her for a walk...

"The doctor is in now, Mr. Wayne...we'll see how this turns out." He smiled, and continued his walk.

The Rag Doll was asleep in the net on the ceiling. The blonde wig from before was hanging off it it, caught under her shoulder. She had apparently been wearing it when she fell asleep. One of the dolls was directly next to her, her arm wrapped limply around it—a giant plush white rabbit with a pink bow-tie.

On another screen he re-winded through the footage of the day, watching her find the little gifts he had hidden through out the room. It kept her entertained long enough, he was sure. Still, she hadn't found all of it. He didn't expect she ever would; some of the places he had been extra creative with.

Seeing her struggle with the phone had been a surprise to him, he had assumed she'd used one before. And the way she talked to herself afterward... She really was like a child, one with an imaginary friend, weather or not she liked it being brought to attention. Not once did she slip into her other self while she was alone. She stretched, she danced, she worked out. She did several stunts off of the wall even, jumping from the floor to the wall and then into the net on the other side of the room and eventually falling asleep.

The Scare Crow turned back and forth in his office chair slowly, watching the live feed of the sleeping Doll. A doll among dolls... It was like she was trying to become one of them. A plaything to be loved and shown off. But by the Joker? He would kill her for the smallest reason, if any reason at all. He would use her and _only_ that, with out knowing what she really was capable of. Then she would be wasted, gone...and she really wanted that.

Jonathan laughed out loud to himself, shaking his head. The girl was digging her way into his skin with her abnormality. He glanced at the mask on the table. _That can't happen_, the Doctor thought, remembering her determined green eyes when her hand had touched his face, _And it won't._

_ "Come here, Batsy Boy." Rag Doll crooned, standing over the bloodied Batman. She kneeled down, grabbing the part of his cape that reached his collar, and pulled him the rest of the way up, landing a sloppy, make-up covered kiss. The blood spattered on his face tasted sweet, his bruised lips shuddered against hers. She pulled back and dropped him._

_ "What? You don't like my kisses?" She cackled, straddling him. "Maybe they're not rough enough..."_

_ He struggled weakly under her as she leaned in again, kissing him harder. Her teeth grazed his, and dug into his lips. She ground her hips against the hard material of the bat suit, hearing him whine beneath her._

_ "Please, stop this." He begged, his voice no longer its masked gravelly tone. It sounded familiar somehow. Like she had heard him before._

_ "Aww...shhh... Its ok, Bats. I won't play the villain all night." She said softly, rubbing the side of his face with her hand._

_ "Elise, please..."_

_ She pulled away from him and back handed him hard. Images of the late Henry Hancock were like static, fuzzing between his dying face, and this man's. Her hand latched around the Batman's neck._

_ "Don't you ever call me that again. DO YOU HEAR ME?" She screamed in his face._

_ "I AM RAG DOLL NOW!"_

_ Both hands wrapped around his neck, bashing his skull into the concrete floor of the ware-house. The wood of the head board splintered. Henry sobbed harder, unable to breathe, knowing he was about to die. _

_ "Please Elise, I'm sorry! I never meant to do that to you, please, stop!"_

_ "You wanted a precious little Doll Henry, remember?! You have her! You fucking have her, now! Are you happy?" She continued to bash his head into the wood of the bed until he was quite, and even longer until her hands hurt from how hard she squeezed his lifeless throat. _

Rag Doll woke up with her hands wrapped around the white rabbit she had been cuddling. Her make up was smeared in its fur, reminding her of Henry's face as he had died. Of Batman's... She felt a wave of nausea run through her. She had dreamed of being with Batman, in _that_ way... Gross. He was her enemy, just as he was the Joker's enemy. Just as Henry had been her enemy.

She thought of her mother, lying tied up next to her father. How she had loved to make that women watch as she destroyed the bastard. _Was that entertaining enough, Mother?_ She remembered asking. _Did you want to help _him_ while _he _suffered?_ And the blade through her throat... Her wide eyes, finally showing a sign of life as it drained out of her, through her blood and her tears. The bitch deserved it, having watched her own daughter being raped for fifteen years, like it was some boring TV show.

Doll rolled over the rabbit, allowing herself to drop down to the floor. She hoped to never, ever have an awful nightmare like that again. Batman was just so..._disgusting._

**I hope you liked it! I made it twice as long this time to make up for all of the days I missed! And there, you got your Batman scene. Be happy Highlander348. :)**

**If you want something in the story write your own excerpt and I'll add it in, and give you credit! (I'm not an ass that will steal your stuff, I promise) And give me some more ideas!**

**Loves Yaz!**

**-Fang**


	6. Fera Crane

"_Do I make for a nice experiment, Dr. Crane...?" The girl asked, kissing him softly, her hands on either side of his face. "Have you enjoyed testing me? My emotions...?"_

_ He couldn't look away from her green eyes, couldn't move from her touch. He wanted this...more than anything right now. She reached up on her tip-toes, and whispered heavily in his ear. "I know one emotion you haven't tested yet, sweet Doctor...and I'm afraid you wont...be able...to take...notes." She said the last parts between the butterfly-soft kisses she left on his neck. A shiver ran through him as he wrapped his arms around her. So this was what it felt like to hold a woman...and to _want _a women, with such...desire..._

_ He groaned as she wove her fingers in his hair, and did the same to her. "Doll..." He muttered, kissing her back. _

"_You are _my _doll..."_

Dr. Crane woke up breathing heavy. His body was more excited than usual. He never had _those _dreams. He never _dreamed_. Why now? Although...Dream Doll had a point. He probably would never be able to test that part of her.

The man cursed, glancing at his bedside clock. The Rag Doll certainly was worming her way into his thoughts more than she should, and waking him up at unnatural hours as well. _I don't like this,_ he thought angrily, remembering the feel of her lips on his neck, _Not at all._

Rag Doll jumped as the caw of a crow rang throughout the quite room, and her phone vibrated on the floor beside her. She picked it up, panicking as she tried to remember how to unlock it. A flashing text bubble at the top right screen told her that the cawing was because of an unopened message. After a few more minutes she finally opened it, seeing the familiar picture of the crow next to the speech bubble.

**I need you to dress up **

**in disguise today. There's**

**an ensemble in the closet**

**on the hanger with the**

**green dress. _Normal_ make-up.**

**I have your heels.**

**-SC**

Rag Doll got up and went into the closet, finding the green dress. It was nice. Soft satin, with slits down each side as high as her mid-thigh. The dress had two thin straps that wrapped around her neck and tied in a small bow. Behind the dress on the hanger was a white pearl necklace with matching earrings. She slipped out of her costume, and felt more naked than she was as she slipped off her red and white striped socks and out of the pile of clothes. The satin was cold against her, but the dress fit perfectly. Her pale white legs showed a little more than she would prefer, and then she saw the small black stretch shorts and long gloves that had fallen off of the hanger, and slipped them on. Better.

Out in the room she put the wig-cap on before washing the make-up off of her face, but re-applied the bright red lip-stick, and some green eye-shadow with thick black eyeliner. Then she turned to her set of wigs, a mix of blondes, browns, blacks, and reds, all with different hair-styles. She picked a brown one with long hair twisted up into a big, low, bun that would hang at the back of her neck. A single strand was left free in the front.

Okay... she thought. Normal. Crane wanted normal...for whatever reason. _His Jonathan Crane, you nimrod, he _likes_ normal. Haven't you noticed that already?_

"Shut up, Elise. I'm being useful...If I'm not useful to Crane, why would he help me be useful to Joker?"

She wiped off the bright red lipstick... she was supposed to have normal make-up on. Closing her eyes she tried to remember her mother's color schemes when she had worn stuff like this. Her hair was also brown, so if it worked for her, it'd work for Doll, right? Pink...that was the color her mother had been wearing the night she killed her. A bright, glossy, bubblegum pink.

Doll sifted desperately through the make-up bag, finding a pink lipstick tube and clear gloss. There. That was normal. Enough...

A soft knock floated through the room, and Doll turned rushing in her bare feet to the door to press her ear to it. She didn't say anything, only waited quietly to see who it was by the sounds they made.

"I's Korrin, love. The docta says 'e 'as a ripe mission for you, 'e does." A man said in a thick cockney accent.

"Oh." Doll muttered, a little disappointed. "It's someone new..."

_ Oh, so you really thought he'd come and get you every morning? _Elise laughed at her. _Quit dreaming, Doll Baby, that useful shit was just to get in your head._ For once, Rag Doll didn't say anything back. Elise was right. She was getting too comfortable, thinking the doctor was doing any of this for her sake. Rag Doll looked around the room, stepping away from the door. He had his reasons for using her and that was it.

"Why doesn't Joker want to use me for anything...?" The girl whined out loud, going over to the floor and retrieving her phone from where she'd left it.

"Wo'ts that, love?" Korrin called through the door.

"Coming!" She called back.

Rag Doll went and pulled open the door. Across from her waited a man in about his late thirties, his hair a bright orange, and his eyes an ocean blue. Deep crows feet had set into his eyes already, and his lips were chapped, split, and scabbed. He stood just a couple of inches shorter than Doll did in her heels.

The girl rubbed one foot on her ankle. _I have your heels,_ the text had said. The smooth feel of skin was almost foreign to her. She wasn't accustomed to being without her heels, and hadn't worn them since Crane had relocated her to the lab.

The man in front of her tipped an imaginary hat at her and wiggled his bushy eyebrows. He made sure she laughed before turning around and leading her out through another pathway in the cave that she hadn't noticed. It led further into the cave. Korrin eventually stopped at a door with a keypad and quickly entered a slue of numbers. The door beeped, and granted them access to a stairwell that they followed up...up...and even further up. Almost a whole hour had passed before they finally reached a platform lower than all of the rest, so that they had to crouch, and Korrin pushed upwards, lifting a small square of metal and pushing it aside.

Sunlight flooded in suddenly, temporarily blinding Rag Doll. She lifted an arm to shield herself from the light. Just as her arm covered her eyes, she felt long, slender, but strong, fingers wrap around her arm and pull her out of the stairwell before she could react. The Rag Doll felt herself being pulled so high up that she felt as though she were floating just before her feet touched the ground lightly, and she was left on her own to stand.

Before her stood Jonathan Crane in a professional suit, slim-fitted and coal black with a white button up and black tie. His pants were also straight black, and professional, and he wore black, recently shined shoes. Rag Doll felt her chin jerked back up to look the doctor in the eye. As usual, his lips were quirked up in a mocking smirk, though this time she assumed it was to mask how badly he wanted to cringe at willingly touching her.

"Today, you are Fera Crane, my sister." He said simply, then knelt down to her legs, moving the skirt of the dress aside. Rag doll willed herself to be still as he wrapped something around her leg, tightened it around a loop, and then she felt the leather straps wrap around and two metal prongs pressed into her upper, inner thigh, and two metal hoops locked together by a tiny lock. The prongs were much like the two in her neck.

Seconds later the doctor was behind her unlocking the shock collar from her neck. Of course. She was supposed to look normal today. How could she look normal with a huge black box and metal prongs sticking into her neck?

"And finally..." She heard him mumble to himself, as though he were growing bored of the mission already. He turned around to face her, motioning to one of the other guards, who handed him a pair of red high-heels. Red. Blade-less. High-heels.

"What have you done to my shoes?!" Rag Doll cried out, her hands reaching greedily for the heels. Crane gave her an irritated look, his mouth twisted into disgusted disapproval. Instantly she drew her arms back, and folded her hands in front of her. Without a word, he slipped a finger into the front of the shoe, where her biggest toe would be, and pressed a button. The blade for that shoe came out of the bottom and slid on a track until it had lined up in the back where it had used to be permanently fixed.

"The other one does the same." He said blandly. The doctor wondered to himself how he had managed to dream about someone so annoying. "Act. Normal. Do anything to give us away and I'll shock you just like when you attacked me." His face was suddenly pleasant, and he smiled. "Now on to the fun part."

He led her to his car, parked just a few feet away. She turned around just in time to see the small spot of red disappear back into the hole. Crane's hand was more insistent at her back, and he opened the passenger side for her, watching as she slipped inside before getting in on the drivers side.

"The strap on your thigh also has holsters for the weapons in my glove box." He said, starting the engine and pulling onto the road.

She opened the glove box excitedly, seeing a series of knifes and even a small hand-gun. "Oh... Dr. Crane, do I get to keep these?" Doll asked, carelessly tossing aside the skirt and strapping each weapon with extreme care.

"In a manner of speaking." Jonathan said, his tone bored. He kept his eyes from wandering away from the road and to other places. Besides, he recalled there being a pair of shorts with the ensemble. Nothing to be curious about. He pushed back the images from his dream, and pushed his chin up a bit farther, strengthening his focus.


	7. Hello, Mr Wayne

It was hard for Rag Doll to sit in silence the whole way there. She fidgeted and squirmed during the whole ride, and resisted the urge to break the silence. Everything she needed to know had already been told to her during the beginning of the ride. Her eyes slowly slid over to Jonathan Crane, who sat comfortably, one hand on the wheel. His other arm was propped against the car door, his head leaning on it. A professional, practiced smile played on his face, as though he were daydreaming, but Doll knew that he wasn't. Underneath that blissful yet calculative facade, he was grimacing. She knew because of the way his eyebrow ticked every once in awhile as his thoughts managed to break through his mask.

She tried to imagine him as a brother, as someone she would have grown up with her whole life. , but how could she when she knew nothing about him at all? All she had been told was that her name was Fera, and she was his sister who was prone to headaches. She had been tired of staying inside for so long and finally decided to venture outside to a social event, seeing as her headaches were getting better. Doll knew instantly that the headaches were only a cover for if he felt any need to electrocute her at all.

Still...what if they asked her about their past? She voiced her question.

"Stay close to me, don't wander off, and I'll answer anything you can't." He said, eerily quaint as he glanced over at her and smiled sweetly. Of course. He was already in character. It would probably be a good idea for her to follow suit.

She smiled back at him, straightened her back, and crossed her legs, turning her head to stare out of the window, imagining all of the things that she could say in a conversation as his sister. Confusion settled in when she saw Jonathan pull into the parking lot at Gotham City Park, and turn the car off.

The whole place was filled with people. On one half children played together with a few adults scattered about as chaperones, on the other half was only adults and waiters in evening gowns and the like. Some of them wandered over with the children and played with them, some stayed in their groups on the other side. Waiters wandered through the children with bowls of fruits, candies, finger sandwiches, and different child-safe drinks.

The doctor stepped out of the car and walked over to her side, letting her out. _"I want you to try and get close to Bruce Wayne,"_ She remembered him saying, and again fought the urge to act how she was used to. She was Fera Crane now. Doll closed her eyes and felt a part of her shut down. When she opened them, she felt as though the wig on her head was real, and the man by her side had been there for years.

Of course he was, Fera thought, he was her brother. _Keep your eyes open Doll, _a voice said in the back of her mind, _I'm not going to lose you because of something stupid like this._ The voice was familiar to her, but she couldn't place it. She guessed it was just an old memory trying to resurface at a bad time, and pushed it aside. She looked up at her brother and smiled.

"Thank you," She told him as they made their way into the crowd. She held onto his arm to keep herself steady—she felt weak from how little she had been outside in the past few months.

"For what?" Her brother asked, allowing a small bit of confusion to show on his composed features. She laughed.

"For getting me out of that awful house, of course!"

Scare Crow didn't let her see how well her acting unsettled him. It was like she had actually became the role he had given her. Unlike all of the other cases he had seen, where at least a small part of that person was in each personality, usually a movement of some sort, she gave off no signs of once being the vicious Rag Doll of whom was determined to fight her way to the Joker. Now, she was just a weak, pale younger sister who was ill.

Jonathan forced a smile, and chuckled. "Of course, Fera. No need to thank me. But you're welcome all the same."

It didn't take long to spot out Bruce Wayne, a crowd of scantily dressed girls and women around him along with frat boys dying to be accepted by him, lingering close by and eying the girls as well. He walked silently over to the billionaire.

"Careful, Mr. Wayne. I'm afraid one of those young men aim to steal one of your women." He said suddenly, loudly next to the other man. Bruce simply turned his head coolly, towards Crane, and made a point of being surprised to see him..._after_.

"Well, if it isn't Dr. Jonathan Crane!" Bruce said loudly, "What are you doing here?"

Crane watched as Wayne's brown eyes sneaked over to the woman by his side.

"Mr. Wayne, this is my sister, Fera. She has been ill for quite sometime, and finally felt well enough to visit one of your famous social gatherings." The doctor patted Fera on her shoulder gently.

"Hello, Mr. Wayne, it's a pleasure to finally meet you." Crane's sister said weakly, reaching a hand out to him. She tried to push off of her brother in order to look more presentable, but felt her knee give-way.

Though both men tried to catch her, Crane intentionally missed, watching as she fell into Bruce. This had worked out way too easily, it seemed. He watched as the billionaire helped her steady herself back against Crane's arm. She looked up at him and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, I was being too careless." She said, and looked at Bruce.

"Thank you, I'm-"

"Don't! Even think of apologizing to me, Ms. Crane." He said, his smile reaching his brown eyes.

Fera nodded, and smiled back at him. The conversation had dropped and her eyes wandered over to the children. She sighed.

"Would you like to go over there, Ms. Crane?"

She looked back at him, startled. Her eyes wide and innocent. "Oh no, I don't want to be a bother. You and my brother seem to get along so well! He hardly seems to socialize more than I do, so really, I'm fine."

She ignored the squeeze her brother gave to her arm. Had she been in better health she would have teased him at being so embarrassed at something so simple, but her wariness ruined her humor.

"Dr. Crane, is this true?" Bruce said, feigning modesty, "Well if you would like you can come along with us then, but I do intend on stealing your sister away whether or not you join us." He looked at her and winked. Fera blushed, hoping her brother would come with her. As weak as she was she couldn't walk by herself, and she didn't want to bother Bruce anymore than she already had with handling her. Her eyes looked into her brother's, pleading.

"Actually, would any of you like any drinks? I'll go and find some and meet you over there." Fera could see through Jonathan's polite smile as he walked off, and Bruce stepped next to her, replacing her brothers missing weight. That sly punk! He had just left her here...

"Shall we go?"

She allowed the man to steer her through the crowd and across the invisible barrier between adults, and children. A part of her watched as the waiters walked by with candies and cakes, and she resisted the sudden urge to stuff a huge piece of chocolate cake into her mouth, to hell with what Bruce Wayne would think. Fera shook the thought from her head, and glanced up at Bruce with a re-assuring smile. Her smile stayed as she watched the children around her, playing with one another.

A light tugging made her stop and look down. A little girl, no older than four, stood there staring up at her. Her blonde hair was in two pig-tails, and she wore a light pink dress. She tugged at the dress again. Fera knelt down to the little girl, who motioned for her to turn her ear to her. Her chubby little hands cupped around the side of her face.

"That's the man that's doing all of this for us." She said with a slight speech impediment, smiley her toothy grin at Fera.

"Oh, is he now?" Fera said dramatically, smiling widely at the billionaire. The little girl waved at her again, her hands cold against the woman's skin.

"Is he your boyfriend?" The little girl asked innocently.

Fera laughed and shook her head. "Oh no, sweetie, he's not." She stood again and watched the little girl staring up at Bruce, her hands clasped behind her back as she turned back and forth on her toes. She blushed, waved at him, and scurried off.

"What did she ask you?" He asked, taking in the way she smiled at the little girl. It was undeniable how much she loved children.

"She thought you were my boyfriend." Fera said blushing, and looked away from him. He laughed like she had, and also turned his attention to the children. Leading her to the edge of the park where a small stone bench was, he sat her down. The frail women put both arms out to her sides, making a point to not to have to lean on Bruce for support, glad for the independence.

...

Crane watched them from a distance. He saw the little bastard taking aim with his sling-shot with whatever it was he intended on throwing, he just didn't see where it was headed until it was too late. The small rubber ball ricocheted off of her head and he saw the flash of anger in her eyes. There was his Rag Doll... but she couldn't play just yet. He hurriedly reached into his pocket and pressed the button to the shock-garter, watching her double-over in pain at the same moment one of the chaperone's noticed the little boy and his sling-shot, hurrying over to take it from him, frantically asking how he managed to bring it.

Another chaperone hurried over to Rag Doll asking if she was okay, but Rag Doll didn't respond. She was too gripped by the pain, she didn't even claw at the garter, only ground her teeth and shut her eyes tightly as she tried to block it out. He waited just a few more seconds before letting go of the button, and smiled as she passed out.

Time for the worried brother to rush in and retrieve his sister..._I guess this outing was too much for you, Fera._


	8. Broken Doll

Jonathan Crane set the Rag Doll on the hospital bed in her room, and lightly removed the weapons he had given her, along with the shoes. Thankfully, she hadn't needed them today. He was surprised at how well she had played her roll and not made any mistakes regarding who she really was. If it hadn't have been for the little boy and his sling-shot they might have been able to stay longer, but he was worried that she might 'reset' back into her normal self if he didn't get her out of there soon.

He laughed to himself. They honestly thought he was a caring brother, helping his sister. And she thought he was helping her out of the goodness of his heart. How easily she seemed to forget her days in the lab, not to long ago. Or did she only pretend to forget? Crane made a mental note to be more cautious around her, as he walked to the back of her closet, weapons bundled in his arms, and pulled a small string in the corner of the ceiling, hidden from view. A panel of wall lifted revealing a keypad, to which he quickly entered the pass-code, and watched as the hidden safe door swung open.

The excited look on her face as he had handed her the weapons flashed into his thoughts. "_Do I get to keep these?"_ She had asked. He hadn't lied. She got to keep them near-by, he never said she could keep them in her hands. Scare Crow didn't look at the sleeping doll as he left the room, only slipped out silently and returned to his own home.

The door behind him remained unlocked.

...

Rag Doll woke suddenly to a loud bang, and sat up in her bed, fumbling for her weapons. In the darkness she saw a silhouette of a short man amble over to her and roughly crawled into the bed with her. She fought against him, images of her father flashing in the darkness. But Henry was dead...

The heavy smell of alcohol invaded her senses as she felt the shorts under her dress being ripped from her. She drew her head back as far as she could and attempted to head-butt the intruder but a strong hand grasped her throat so tightly she couldn't breathe. "Now, don'chew be getting' any idea's there girly," the thick cockney accent threatened. "I's all on docta's orders, girly. All part of 'is experiment, it is." He laughed, and pressed his chapped lips against hers. The skin was so chapped it was practically curling off of his lip and yet still connected. They felt gross against her, mixed with the smell of the alcohol.

She tried to fight the rising panic in her as she registered what he had said, paired with the situation. The man's other hand fumbled and grabbed both of her arms as he positioned himself between her legs. Then her body went limp as she felt her other side begin to take over.

Rag Doll giggled in the mans ear and wiggled her hips back against him. "There ya go love," the man said, relaxing and letting go of her throat.

"That wasn't very smart, Korrin." Rag Doll crooned, and flung her head into his as hard as the space she had would allow. It was enough to make him sit up, grabbing his forehead in pain. She quickly scrambled upwards and rolled off of the bed. Her phone fell beside her, but she didn't turn back for it. She hurriedly got on her knees and tried to crawl to the closet, but the damned dress kept tripping her.

She shrieked as Korrin grabbed the back of her dress and drug her to him. Her arms flailed out feeling the ground for anything near by. Shaky hands found the phone, and she continued to struggle away from the man, hearing the dress tear as she tried to crawl and unlock the phone at the same time. Doll's finger had just barely managed to press the call button next to Dr. Crane's number when Korrin roughly shoved her onto her back, straddling her again. Again he grabbed her hands and held them with one of his own.

"DOCTOR CRAAAANNEEE!" Rag Doll screamed into the phone, hoping he would hear her. Hoping he would _care_. She was useful, wasn't she? She couldn't be disposable. She just couldn't.

_Don't be so gullible, _Elise screamed angrily in her head,_ Nobody wants to save you! Nobody gives a fuck about you! Just deal with it!_


	9. Eyes the Color of Insanity

"_Dr. Craaannnee!"_

Scarecrow jumped, holding the phone at a distance before he saw the small Raggedy Ann icon in the center of the screen. He pressed it back to his ear and listened as he swiftly climbed out of the bed and put on his clothes. Someone was in the room, screwing up _his _experiment. This could be bad. He'd be _lucky_ if she didn't repress Elise even further, and if his luck ran out...he grabbed the modified mace can and mask as he left, images of an uncontrollable, murderous Rag Doll surfacing in his mind.

He stayed on his phone the whole time, listening to make sure he knew what was going on. It was hard to tell exactly what was happening, but by the screaming and hisses of pain (both male and female) he knew she was fighting back. _DAMN IT_, why had he kept her so far away from him? How had this person found her? His irritation mounted into a rising anger as he tossed around the different possibilities.

Finally Crane pulled into the woods where the entrance was hidden. He bolted from the car and found his way to the trap door, lifting it and maneuvering his way down the stairs. "Rag Doll!" He screamed through the phone, still held up to his ear. If she knew he could hear her, she'd know he was coming, and she'd fight that much harder. He jumped every other level of the spiraled stairwell. Hopefully she would cling to whatever sanity she had left. Damn it, she was _his_ experiment, who the hell had gotten in there?! He could never find out what Elise was hiding if Rag Doll took over completely, or if they both disappeared all together. What usually took him an hour's walk took him half the time running as fast as he did. He entered the pass-code into the door and ran towards Rag Doll's chamber. After so long, the doctor didn't need to keep track of her with the phone anymore—he could hear her from where he was. He shoved it into his pocket and pulled on his mask.

Rag Doll was no longer being assaulted, but lay on the ground in a fit; ripping at her hair, slamming her head and fists into the ground, screaming nonsense, going back and forth between that and laying perfectly still, sobbing silently, then she would suddenly scream and continue her fit. The man had backed off of her and stood fumbling to redo his pants and shooting her frightened glances. Scarecrow didn't hesitate. The second he was within arms reach of the man he sprayed his toxin, making sure to fill the room with it. Long fingered hands grabbed at the other man's collar.

Now Jonathan could see the red hair and disgustingly chapped lips. Fresh claw marks marred his face and bare shoulders, and a large dark bruise had settled right in the center of the British man's forehead. Ocean blue eyes slowly began to dilate as the toxin started to take effect, and as badly as he wanted to kill this man, he decided to throw him out of the room and shut the door. The bastard would kill himself if he was lucky.

The room was now almost quite with the lack of movement. In the dark he could see Doll curled up on the floor and whimpering, softly. Every few moments the whimper would slide into a loud wail, during which her head would violently twitch just once, to either side, but then quickly the wail dropped back to its soft sob. The doctor stood, fascinated by her behavior. There was so much emotion...so much _fear_ in her eyes...

He removed his mask, and knelt down next to her, reaching his hand out and lightly touching the tips of his fingers to her face He traced the bruise at the side of her head that mixed with her smeared eyeliner, across the bottom of her eye to her nose...down...over her lips...to her neck, where a huge, dark, ugly bruise formed the perfect outline of fingers. He wondered how she would react when she saw this. _I__f _the man hadn't caused any lasting trauma, that was.

The girl froze at his touch. Her sobbing and wails stopped and her green eyes opened wide, but still didn't focus on him. They searched the darkness for someone else, focused on details that no one could see but her. Did he dare call her by her name? He had left the remote to the shock-garter at his home, leaving him defenseless should he trigger a violent outburst from her. No...he wouldn't. Not right now. It was completely silent now except for the muffled screams of the man outside the door. Again, the doctor worried about Elise being fully repressed. He felt the swollen bruises on her neck.

"Stay strong, Doll...don't disappear on me." He said softly, and scooped her up in his arms, laying her back onto the hospital bed, before turning towards the door. Blurred mumbling rose in the near-quiet of the dark. Again she was fidgeting, twitching her head erratically. Only when he was reaching for the handle did he hear what she was saying.

"Please...please...leave. Don't leave me.. Dr. Crane...please... please don't leave me." He hesitated then, thoughts drifting over the dream from the night before. _"I know one emotion you haven't tested yet, sweet doctor..."_

This was the perfect opportunity to gain her trust... He stared at her for a long moment, contemplating. His gaze turned towards the door, where he could still hear Korrin screaming. No, he wouldn't stay. He decided this as he pulled out his phone, and dialed the number of one of his more trusted men.

"I have a problem outside of Rag Doll's room, I need you to take care of him soon so that I can leave. And hurry. I have things to do."

Crane flipped his phone shut, and looked back over to the girl, disheveled and broken. Her eyes still searched the room for things he couldn't see. Her hands clenched and unclenched, grabbing at the sheets over and over again as she tossed and turned. Between her rambled non-sense, he could make out her still begging him to stay. The mere fact that she was begging for him proved that he had won. Perhaps tomorrow he would be able to coax Elise out of hiding, but first he wanted to get his hands on that chemical.

About an hour and a half later there was a gun shot and he could hear his men dragging away the British man's body. Rag Doll was already in a deep sleep, and barely stirred. This didn't surprise the doctor considering the trauma that he was now sure Korrin had inflicted on her. Rough knuckles rapped on the door to let him know when they were finished. With one last look at the sleeping doll, he walked out of the room, and followed his men back outside.

_"I don't want to go away...I don't want to disappear. I'm finally_ worth_ something. Let me stay, please. I'll do better, I'll  
_be _better. I'll be everything and more, just _let. Me. Stay! ... _I'm begging you, Rag Doll."_

_Rag Doll laughed at the tears pouring from the blonde's eyes, streaming down her face like blood from a wound._

_"You've already said this." Doll hissed. _

_"You're useless. A waste. I don't need you, and I never did. It's because of your weakness that this happened." She leaned down to the broken girl who sat on her knees, horrified and defeated. "_I _wouldn't have been afraid. I could have killed him...but you hesitated." _

_Elise flinched._

_Doll continued. "You're nothing but a weak link, and _all _weak links, must be severed, Elise. Good bye."_

_Before Rag Doll could turn to leave, the blonde had latched onto her skirt, holding on as though it might save her. _

_"Please! You can't! I am useful! I AM! You need me!"_

_Doll laughed and kicked her off, her heels connecting with her face, digging into the bone and flesh._

_"Don't make me laugh, Elise. Name one reason that I should need you."_

_The thing just laid there. She didn't try to sit up, or even answer. Grim acceptance washed over her and she cried, silently. Rag Doll smirked, turned on her heel, and walked away._

_"Good bye, Elise." She said brightly, waving as everything faded into black._

Rag Doll opened her eyes and stretched, arching her back as she felt it pop, sounding like a set of firecrackers going off. With a sigh she fell back onto the bed. Part of her wished she were in a real hospital, so that some of that refreshing, morning light would filter in through the window. As she relaxed from her stretch she felt her feet rub together-material against material. A frown went over her face. How had she gotten in here anyway? All of her weapons were missing, including her heels. Had Korrin been the one to bring her back to her room and strip her of her weapons?

A sick image went through her mind of the look on his face last night. "_I's all on docta's orders, girly. All part of 'is experiment._" That's what he had said.

Rag Doll pulled out her phone and called Dr. Crane. It rang for awhile before he answered. She grinned, listening to the surprised tone of his voice. He was trying to hide it, how cute. "Yes, Dr. Crane!" She said professionally, a small hint of humor in her voice, "I was hoping I might be able to schedule an appointmen_t_." Her lips curled up on the sides. For once, her head didn't ache. There was no voice in the back of her head complaining and crying, repressing her and trying to hold her at bay. This was too good.

The doctor laughed, and she could imagine him returning the smile slowly, his eyes almost libidinous as his pen hovered over his notes at whatever office he was in. "I see you're feeling better..." She heard the pen tapping on his desk, and imagined him watching it. "And as for the..._appointment._..I need to speak with you anyway. I'll have one of my men-"

"No men." She cut him off. Her humor suddenly serious. "If you ever leave me alone with your men again, I will personally return you the favor of what happened to me, and it won't be pleasant. I don't care what _results_ you want for your experiment."

Crane froze, taking in what she had just said. She was getting cocky. Again, Scarecrow found himself wondering just how dangerous she was. "That's a hard offer to refuse, Ms. Doll, but are you saying that you want me to come and fetch you every time that you're needed?"

Rag Doll could imagine a single brow quirked up on the doctor's face. She let out a pleasant hum. "Are you testing to see if I've developed that trust that you want from me, sweet doctor? No. I was only hoping that you might have some _female_ employee's that I might have the pleasure of meeting."

"I'll see what I can do." And he hung up. Just like that.

"Huh. _Rude._" Rag Doll swung her legs over the bed, and bounced into the closet, looking for a fresh costume. She was still wearing that awful dress from the other day, and it smelled like alcohol and male hormones. That, just would not do.

**I'm sorry it took me so long to update, I couldn't figure out how I wanted this to play out, but I know where we're going! I might post another chap. tonight, but definitely soon! Aaaand, we get to see our good ol' buddy Joker soon too. ;D Let me know what you think so far! :) **


	10. Sweet Sanity

Rag Doll stretched her legs out on the dashboard of the car, pulling her socks back up her thigh. A satisfied sigh blew past her lips. She just felt so _relaxed._ The doctor did too, she noticed with a grin on her red painted lips.

"So...where are we going?" She said slowly, walking two fingers up her leg as she spoke, and tapped them at her knee before flicking the air and slapping her hands down. His quirked up smile seemed to stay a lot more now. Doll had a feeling it was due to the lack of Elise.

"To Wayne Industries." He said it like he was leading up to a punch line, and turned his head to look at Doll.

It was hard not to feel comforted around Rag Doll now; her cool demeanor was a nice change. It did worry him that she hadn't needed to 'slip' into it, and that it had become more dominant than Elise, but at least she wasn't the babbling vegetable that she had been last night.

"Okay." She said expectantly, and nodded her head slowly as she glanced in front of them.

Scarecrow turned his attention back to the road and let his smile drop. "Mr. Wayne has recently acquired a certain chemical that I want. If it is what my sources say it is, then it can be very beneficial...to both of us."

A chemical that could be beneficial to Rag Doll? She could only guess that it had to do with his toxin.

"I see. So is this what you wanted to speak with me about, Doctor?" Oh, how his fingers had twitched when she said that.

"Part of it. I also came across a couple of items that you might also find interesting." He nodded to the glove box again.

Inside it was a brown package about a foot long, and about six inches wide. When she opened it she found two silver, intricately shaped blades, as long as her forearm, and with leather straps through them. Her eyes went wide as she picked one up and held it up to the light. It was so _sharp._ She lightly traced her finger on its edge. A thin line of blood trickled down her finger. She bit her lip and stifled a moan.

"Ohh...they're so beautiful..." She closed her eyes for a minute, licking the blood from her finger and started laughing. "I suppose your expecting a 'thank you', aren't you Dr. Crane?"

He watched out of the corner of his eye as she strapped the blades onto her forearm. She had already put on her heels, opting to keep the blades out, and had various other weapons strapped into the holster of her shock-garter. This time she might be able to actually use them.

"Not at all. I just expect you to perform with as much enthusiasm."

The rest of the ride was silent, aside from Rag Doll humming as she watched her new blades playing in the light. When Dr. Crane pulled out his mask, she pulled her legs down from the dashboard and prepared herself. He got out of the car and went to the trunk, pulling out a retractable scythe and slipping it through a back part of his suit she hadn't noticed before; it was hidden in the seems and made so that it would hold the scythe effectively. Doll could see his head turn to her, but couldn't read his expression through the mask. She nodded for him to lead the way.

He walked around the building, his steps slow and calculated. One arm raised up and motioned to the cameras. "I want you to disable all of those so that I can go up to the roof."

"Ha! Did the big bad Scarecrow lose his gun?" Rag Doll pulled her own small gun from the holster and shot out the two cameras that watched them, and continued on to the ladder that he directed her towards.

She knew what his real reason was, though. The thought had already been there when he told her what to do, and she had been unsurprised. He wanted her to be seen and not him. _How cute_, Doll thought as she purposefully skipped one and continued on her way. He actually thought he could trust her? A smile played on her lips, but fell when she realized that the familiar clanging of the doctor climbing behind her had stopped.

When she turned around she saw that he had stopped just out of range of the camera. One slender, black gloved finger tapped the side of his head. "I know where they're at." the motion said. Rag Doll feigned an apologetic smile and shot out the camera, spinning back around and climbing a slight bit faster. _Damn him,_ she thought as she pulled her self onto the near-flat rooftop. She shot out the surrounding camera's before the doctor pulled himself up behind her.

"Now what?" She gestured to the empty rooftop, having only one lone door in the far back to the left. He didn't honestly think they could just waltz right through the door did he? All of the entrances to the air ducts were on the side of the building, and he had made a point to pass them up.

By the tone of his voice, she knew Scarecrow was grinning under his mask. "Why, we go in of course." He said, almost playfully, and pulled out his scythe, holding it ready at his side as he walked.

***Sneak Peak of Next Chapter:**

**She ignored the chill it gave her when he licked his scars so thoughtfully. He turned his eyes back to her's from across the room and slowly began to step towards her. She grinned and mimicked him, adding a little extra sway as she bounced each hip at each step. Joker grinned.**

"**I uh.. Can't help but notice a bit of a.. _difference _in you, Doll." He said, looking her over, taking in her new demeanor.**

**Rag Doll stopped, and smiled sweetly at him. He was so close to her now, she could reach out and touch him if she wanted. Slowly she traced one finger sexily up her leg as she talked. **

"**Aw...Joker. Do you finally find me useful?" She grabbed one of her blades from the holster of her shock-garter. **

"**Elise would have loved to hear that."She leaned over and whispered in his ear. **

"**Too bad she was the one who was fascinated with you." At this he lunged at her with one of her blades, realizing she was no longer interested in serving him. She cackled, dodging and striking back at him. **

"**_I, FOR ONE, DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS!" _She screamed psychotically.**

***I'm so sorry I haven't been updating as frequently as when I first started! It seemed every time I go to work on a chapter something comes up and pulls me away from it. :( But, I'm trying my best to put out several at a time to make up for it, so please bear with me! Don't forget to review and let me know what you think!**


	11. A New Development Pt1

"I really hope you know what you're looking for." Rag Doll said warningly. They had been going through each of the office rooms in the top of the warehouse, searching each room thoroughly. It had already been about four hours and still they hadn't done much of anything besides flinging random items everywhere, and leaving each room in horrible disarray. The doctor had removed his mask for the time being, seeing as they were alone in the building. All of the employees were off on holiday.

"I do, but that doesn't mean it can't have been moved. I've had this information for quite sometime, and it's only natural that the chemical wouldn't be kept in the same place for long, because of people such as ourselves." The doctor said this while bent over a huge drawer full of various files, each of which he pulled out, flipped through, and tossed in whichever direction he happened to be feeling at the time.

"Do you even know what it _looks_ like?" She said this because of his lack of distinction. He looked up and gave her a dead-pan stare.

"Yeah, that's a no."

Doll flung a stray bit of hair out of her way and leaned back over the desk. She didn't look long before sitting heavily into the office chair behind her and rolling around. How could you find something if you didn't even know what it looked like? It was ridiculous! Her neck rolled around to watch the doctor, and she turned her body seconds after. He was staring at her again, eyebrow raised and nodded towards where she was searching.

"There's nothing there!" She exclaimed, raising her arms. "For all we know its stuffed in a pen and we'll n-"

A blood curdling, male scream cut through the air, followed by hysterical laughter. Doll quickly swiveled to face the door-way, ran up, and hung out of it, one hand holding the frame, and both feet together. Her waist-length dreads swung, the only movement in the now still ware-house office area. She cocked her ear towards where the sound had been and listened.

"You said they'd be here hours ago!" She heard a familiar voice complain. "Do I _really_ have to start cutting off limbs?"

Doll glanced back at Dr. Crane to gauge his reaction, which was to quickly put on his mask, and grab his scythe before joining her in the doorway.

"You might want to go through your men again, and reinforce that whole, 'traitors' thing." Scarecrow adjusted his mask,ignoring her, and simply stepped out and made his way silently down the hall. Her heels, however, were everything but silent. She laughed at his cautiousness, and began to skip ahead of him, bouncing into the doorway.

"Why, if it isn't my old friend, Joker." She hung in the doorway again, eying him and the poor goon cradling his hand to his chest. Three of his fingers were missing.

"You're not my friend, sweetheart." His painted up face was serious, but then he grinned broadly. "However, a little birdie told me you were looking for something a little like this!" He held a small glass vial with a purple liquid in it. A piece of paper wrapped in plastic floated inside. His scarred grin faltered when they didn't respond. Crow only stood still, watching him, and Doll grinned at him.

She really couldn't care less. Everything she had heard about this chemical and still she had no idea how it could possibly benefit her.

**I've been batting this chapter back and forth trying to get it up to that excerpt I said would be in the next chapter, but I'm at a complete block. Hopefully I'll have it soon, but that's why I haven't been posting anything at all lately. I'm so sorry! Let me know what you think, and maybe help me out a little? As always, I will give credit to those who give me ideas. **

**WinterRain36, I _am _going with your idea, it's just taking me forever to get there, but thank you all the same for giving me a direction!  
**

**Koryandrs, Thank you so much for leaving your reviews on almost every chapter, and letting me know how I was doing! You answered a lot of questions I had and just wasn't sure how to ask, and I always look forward to what you'll think about the next one.**

**Highlander348, I am sorry but I don't want this to turn into a sexual story, though I did put romance for the category I had planned on it being a subtle romance, more of a fascinated interest really, but I hope you still like what turns out. Thank you so much for still reading!**

**Thank you all of my other readers, for following with my story, let me know what you think sometime, even if its an anonymous review! I like to know what runs through your heads!  
**

**Until next time!  
**

** , Fang**


	12. A New Development Pt2

**I'm still working on this bit by bit, but crap keeps coming up. Here's what I have so far, part 3 will be out soon! Enjoy!**

She really couldn't care less. Everything she had heard about this chemical and still she had no idea how it could possibly benefit her. Did he plan to drop it, or was he just waving it around for their reaction? Rag Doll watched Joker as she thought. He frowned, and stuck it back in his pocket, pushing away from the desk he had been leaning on.

"You two really don't like to play games do you?" Joker said this with a mockingly blank face.

"You're starting to bore me. And your games suck." Rag Doll mimicked the dead pan stare that Crow had given her only minutes before. She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. Inwardly, she grinned at the way the doctor's face had turned to her and tilted before returning to the dumbfounded clown in front of him.

He licked the insides of his scars pointedly, clicking his cheeks. Then turned an ear towards her. "Uh.._what_?"

A humored, breathy laugh came out of her as she walked the few steps to him. He put his hands in his pants pockets, pushing his purple jacket back. Doll knew what he was doing; he was keeping the chemical where it'd be harder for her to get. She didn't care.

She said it slowly, stressing each word. "Your. Games. _Suck._" Then slowly, she stretched her neck and pressed her own painted face into his, their eyes level, and quickly slammed her head into him.

In the moment that he reared back grabbing his head, she gave a quick roundhouse kick to his arm before his men could react. The blade on her heel cut deeply, and a hiss of pain escaped him as he recovered. Blade drawn, he swung for her throat and she dodged both him, and the two men beside her, leaning backwards. Scarecrow became engrossed in a hand to hand with one of them, unable to retrieve the gun from his pocket.

Laughter rang out; a mix of both Rag Doll and Joker. Rag Doll was laughing as she watched the short clown-goon try and grab for Scarecrow's scythe and get an elbow slammed into his neck when he failed to block him self. Joker was laughing to hide how badly the laceration in his arm burned with each of his movements. She cut him up more when she dodged, loving the feel of the blades attached to her forearms as she blocked and sliced at once.

She heard the glass of the window in front of her break as the Doctor threw the short goon out of it and into the main floor of the ware-house, jumping out after him.

"Just one second, Sugar." Doll winked, ducking the Joker's next attack and springing into the air, heels out, and kicked the remaining goon behind him onto the ground. She landed backwards and crouched, one foot on either side, and flipped around stomping both feet onto the center of his chest as she landed again. Doll bounced on her heels for a second, using it to help her jump higher, her feet flying into the air above her. Joker tried to follow her movements as she reached out for him and balanced on his shoulders in a hand stand. Before he could shake her off, she brought herself down hard and bent her knees slammed them into the clown's chest.

"How sad, Elise would have loved to have you like this." Rag Doll laughed, rummaging through his pockets as she straddled the dazed villain, and finally pulled out the glass vial, holding the chemical. Part of her wanted to keep going through his pockets and see what else was in them but didn't; he was starting to come out of his daze. She did however, get up, kick him in the head, and pull the bottom of his jacket so that it peeled off of him, and made her way into the frame of the shattered window.

"Bye!" She called brightly, sticking the vial between her breasts and folding the jacket over her arm before diving onto the main floor of the ware-house and joining Scarecrow, who now waited for her next to the bleeding and unconscious henchman.

For the moment, it seemed the doctor chose to ignore the jacket, and turned to lead her to the door. Now that they had what they wanted, it didn't matter how they left; they'd be gone before anyone else showed up. Doll remembered the Uzi she'd felt inside the jacket and pulled it out, ready to start shooting out the cameras on the way out. _With style, _she thought smirking, twirling the gun in her hand.

Just as the doctor touched the door however, large iron gates began slamming down in front of each exit, window, and major air vent. Rag Doll screamed in frustration, stamping her feet in defiance. Alarms mocked her scream rhythmically with the flashing red lights that flooded the room. Scarecrow was quickly half crouched, searching the room. His gun was drawn.

"How the _hell_?" Doll screeched. There hadn't been any alarms before, any iron gates, _nothing_. Why now?

Her and Scarecrow spun towards the jovial cackles that sounded between each blare of the buzzing alarm. Joker skipped down the metal staircase on the far right of the office rooms. He looked odd in the blue hexagon-print button up and green vest that now wasn't hidden beneath the jacket.

He straightened at the look she gave him, and looked from the broken window back to her. "I don't like glass in my shoes." He stated giving her a pointed look. She barely heard him over the alarm.

She ignored his statement. "Oh come on, Clown, now we're all screwed! Do you get a kick out of jail?"

"Let the scarecrow talk for once. I know the man's quiet, but he usually says _something_ by now."

Crane didn't say anything. He just raised his gun and shot at the other man's feet, pulling Rag Doll along with him as he side stepped his way behind a huge stack of boxes.

"Why aren't you talking that much, now?" She asked, crouching next to him.

"Shut up."

"Humph." She turned around and peaked out from behind the boxes. Joker was now a few feet away from the staircase, holding a small Beretta. Doll assumed he had pulled it out from the back of his pants.

"Dammit Jo-"

"_Let the man talk!"_ The clown said, as roughly as he had in his video from the news. Then he giggled, "You called me Joe."

The girl jabbed an elbow into Jonathan's side. His eyes flashed at her dangerously. "Well?" She returned his stare. "Ask him why all of this is so funny!" She knew when he looked at her it was questioning, and huffily gestured around. "_The alarms!"_

"It doesn't matter!" Scarecrow told her, looking around the corner to check on where the Joker was.

Currently he was sifting through one of the boxes, pulling out various different kinds of party decorations. Pink, blue, and red pastel colored streamers were strewn behind him. Surely he still had his guard up, or maybe... Doll cocked her head watching him. Maybe he really just didn't care, and he was turning his back on a _whim_, standing there hoping Scarecrow and her just weren't in the mood to shoot him right then. Huh. And he was _right!_

Rag Doll kept watching as the realization seeped in that every preconceived notion she'd had about him was because of Elise's fascination. Now, without that whimpering, obsessive idiot gushing over him, she could see him for what he really was. A very, very, lucky, careless..._idiot._

Joker threw dolls of every kind, porcelain, rag doll, plush, stuffed animals, all out of the box. What the hell was all of this for? Doll tried to keep her guard up as she watched in curiosity. Was he just buying time, waiting for something? Police were on their way here right now! Why they hadn't shown up yet was beyond her.

Then she saw it. A glorious, pastel blue, jumbo sized crochet mallet. It a red butterfly painted on both sides of the head, and red rings on both sides of that, and the bottom of the handle. Of course, this was the one item he kept in his hand. His grin broad, he bounced the mallet in his hand, and swung it, testing whatever the hell he was testing.

Doll gritted her teeth. "I want that hammer." She said out loud, and pulled out one of her Uzi's shooting at his legs. She didn't aim as well as she should have, and he danced out of the way, whooping, but didn't drop the mallet. Instead he held it closer, cradling it to his chest as he dodged her bullets. The gun clicked, empty. Okay. He was luckier than she gave him credit for.

Her other hand felt the pockets of the jacket trying to find something else useful, but found nothing. Not wanting to leave it behind, she tied it around her waist and got up. The Beretta lay forgotten on the box beside the one that had held all of the decorations, _and_ her hammer. She made her way around the boxes and ran towards him, arms crossed in front of her to that the blades were aimed out.

"Oh, now you want to play?" Joker laughed, dancing around her as she sliced at him.

"I. Want. That. _HAMMER!"_ She screamed between attacks.

"Oh_hooo_, this one?" He said, rearing it back and bashing her in the side with it. Doll found herself flung several feet across the floor. Worn, brown, suede dress shoes stepped towards her and he pulled the hammer back again. "It's a mallet!" He shouted as he hit her again. She shot out one of her arms, cutting the top of his foot and hopped to her feet grabbing the hilt of it and tried to yank it from him.

He held his grip and pulled back, but she refused to let go. The two stood there shaking the mallet back and forth. Suddenly, Joker pulled back, hands up and looked from her to the object that had nearly sliced his hands off, to where it had come from. Batman stood on a catwalk at the top of the ware-house a few feet away, holding another batarang as he prepared to throw it.

She saw Crane's scythe poke out from behind the boxes as he pulled it from his back and stood, backing away farther towards the back of the ware-house. Moments later he disappeared. She knew he hadn't left her, but what the hell? She stepped aside as the bat-shaped blade zoomed in front of her and looked back to the vigilante. _This_ was who the alarm had signaled? A whole hoard of policeman who should have been there, and _this _was who showed up?

"What are you? The _ware-house_ _mercenary _now? Where the hell are the _police?"_ Rag Doll laughed at him.

Joker turned to look at her, his eyes narrowed. "That's my line."

She rolled her eyes and looked back up at Batman expectantly. It seemed a few seconds before he answered.

"...They'll be here." He stated simply.

"And they'll arrest you too! My god, is the jail here like going on vacation to you people?" She raised her right arm in exasperation, the left weighed down by the mallet. _Her mallet._ She grinned, rubbing her thumb across the handle as she watched Batman land on the floor of the ware-house and begin walking towards her and Joker with purpose.

The clown danced backwards, "Come on, Batty-boy I was _helping _you. Really, I was. You can ask her! _I _was trying to stop _them. Honest!_"He pointed at doll as he spoke, reaching into his back pocket and flicking open yet another knife.

Batman ignored him and kept walking, ignoring the girl next to him as well.

"Uh, _excuse me!_" She shouted at him, lifting the hammer as she aimed for his back. He dodged her hit, and continued on.

"I don't fight women." He said. "You're better off going home. I'm sure you have school in the morning."

"You rude _bastard!"_ Rag Doll screamed, running at him and readying the mallet again. "Fight me!"

He turned around in time to block her attack. The middle spike of his gauntlet stuck into the handle and he jerked his arm to the side trying to pull the weapon from her. "Oh no you don't," she said under her breath and pulled both feet up, kicking him in the chest and pulling the spike out of the wood. He stumbled but didn't fall. Joker rammed him in the side suddenly, shoving Rag Doll out of the way.

"Quit stepping in on my fight!"


	13. A New Development Pt3

"Damn it, Clown!" Rag Doll shrieked, slicing him I the back with the blade on her forearm. He hissed in pain and turned on her, only to be smashed in the side with her mallet. Someones luck was running out.

"He's mine." She growled at him, eyes locked onto the Gothic hero as she lunged at him, holding her hammer as though she planned to strike with it, and instead slamming her forehead into his mask. A satisfying crack told her he would be dazed, and she swung the mallet up into his chin. His head snapped backwards and he fell, unconscious. As a precaution, she twirled the mallet with her as she spun to face Joker, smacking him in the side of the head as she knocked him down as well.

"Stay down for a little while sweetie, and rest your head." She said innocently, and turned around to go find Scarecrow. It was hard to accept that he had run from the fight, but it wasn't illogical. Doll thought back to all of the nerds she had ever met—especially the science ones. None of them were the fighting type. Still, he had his guns didn't he? And his scythe. What the hell?

Rag Dolls thoughts were interrupted as a nasally groan sounded from several yards behind her. Turning she saw the clown slowly making his way to his feet. He reached a hand out towards her. When she didn't move he rolled his eyes, putting his hand out again, more pointedly.

"C'mon. Hand it over." He waved his fingers and tilted his head at her expectantly. She still didn't do anything. He gave her a serious look. "The jacket, doll. I want my jacket."

"Hell no!" Doll said defensively, clutching the loose sleeves defensively. "I plan to investigate this jacket."

"Its just a jacket! I made it, I wear it. Hand it over, I'm getting a chill." His tongue curled dangerously at the end of 'chill'.

"Bullshit, Mary Poppins, it stays with me." She started to turn again, when he pulled his hand back, clenching it into a fist before pointing at her.

"You know," He said shaking his finger at her. She ignored the chill it gave her when he licked his scars so thoughtfully. He turned his eyes back to her's from across the room and slowly began to step towards her. She laughed and mimicked him, adding a little extra sway as she bounced each hip at each step and dragging the hammer limply behind her. Joker grinned. "I uh.. Can't help but notice a bit of a.. _difference _in you, Doll." He said, looking her over, taking in her new demeanor.

Rag Doll stopped, and smiled sweetly at him. He was so close to her now, she could reach out and touch him if she wanted. Slowly she traced one finger sexily up her leg as she talked.

"Aw...Joker. Don't tell me that you finally find me useful?" She teased the top most part of her thigh high sock. She leaned over and whispered in his ear. "Elise would have loved to hear that. Too bad she was the one who was fascinated with you." At this he lunged at her with one of her blades, realizing she was honestly no longer interested in serving him. He'd apparently been placing all of his bets on Elise's fascination. Rag Doll cackled, dodging and striking back at him.

"_I, FOR ONE, DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS!" _She screamed psychotically, swinging the hammer around and barely clipping his hip as it smashed into the ground.

"Where'd all of the love go, sweet heart?" Joker laughed, hissing as his next dodge made him twist his back.

"It _left _with _Elise_," She said between grunts, trying her best to hit the clown with her hammer. She felt like she was in some twisted Whack-A-Mole game with the way he kept hiding behind boxes. Suddenly a pair of hands had grabbed her upper arms from behind, dragging her backwards. She held onto the hammer with both hands so as not to loose it, but couldn't get a good hit because of her angle.

"Let go of me!" Doll screamed, trying her best to wiggle out of the grip of the person who was holding her, but they only continued to drag her away. She watched as Joker stood there, feet together, leaning over and innocently waving goodbye. She would have thought it was one of his men dragging her if she hadn't have seent he black leather gloves, and dress pants. Rag Doll turned her head to verify her thoughts, and saw the black suit jacket, white button-up and black tie, topped off with his trademark scarecrow mask.

"Where the hell have you been?" She said, relaxing and letting him pull her along. He dropped her when he realized that she was no longer struggling.

"Getting us a way out of here."


	14. Dinner and Kool-Aid

Doll twirled the crucible tongs between her fingers, leaning against a table in the doctors hidden lab in the asylum. He dipped a strip of paper into the vial, soaking it in the purple liquid, and placed the paper underneath the microscope.

"For such a complex chemical, this has an abnormally high sugar content."

"Well, look at cyanide," Rag Doll said, dipping the tongs in the vial and pulling out the piece of paper floating in the middle. "It _is _a sugar." The Doctor rolled his eyes and went back to the microscope. Hesitantly, she reached her fingers out, touching it lightly with their tips. Instead of the acidic burn she expected, it was just wet. She tore the plastic off of the paper and unrolled it, a smirk going onto her face.

An hour passed, and then another, as the doctor studied the liquid. Doll just watched him quietly, her legs crossed, foot bouncing as the minutes ticked by. Finally, well past midnight, the man threw his arms up in defeat. "I don't get it! There's nothing there. It might as well be the same thing as _kool-aid_ for all I know!"

Rag Doll laughed, unrolling the paper again and turning it so that he could see. "That's because it is."

'_How about that Purple stuff?_' The paper read, in scribbled green ink. Signed with a simple 'J'. "Honestly, I'm not surprised." The girl said, as the doctor walked over to her, picking it up and reading it over and over before slowly crinkling it into a tight wad. He snarled at it before tossing it aside, not caring that the trash can was in the other direction.

"Probably should have read a bit more on that chemical huh? It probably isn't even purple."

"Shut-up." Scarecrow said simply, turning around and pacing back and forth. He mumbled quietly as he thought out loud, running through different ways to obtain it. "One thing we know for sure, is that it _is_ in the possession of Bruce Wayne, whether or not that was the right ware-house however, we don't know. It's already evident that one or more of my men are mutinous, so the information as to location was probably guessed, wrong, or planted. I can't rely on them...but you..." He turned to her, wagging a thoughtful finger at her. "You...I've been watching. I know you haven't gone anywhere."

His head twitched to the side, "But she's fascinated by the clown." He hissed, eyes squeezing shut tight. "No. _Elise_ was fascinated by the clown," He hissed back to himself, and looked up at her. "I have no other option."

Rag Doll watched him curiously, wondering what exactly was going through the doctor's head. He pointed at her again. "I need you to be Fera Crane again, and we're going to go pay her new friend a visit."

…

Fera sipped at her water gently, trying not to let her irritation show through. That damned brother of hers... She had told him she wanted to meet more people, not meet more _men._

"_It'll be nice!"_ She remembered him saying as he pushed her towards Bruce. _"You need a little time to flirt, and who better to do that with than the billionaire playboy himself?"_

"Is everything alright, Ms. Crane?" Bruce asked from across the table they'd been seated at. She looked up at him and smiled, trying not to look around at the fancy decor of the high-class restaurant.

"Oh yes, I just have a slight head-ache is all. Nothing serious." She lied. Thanks to her condition, it wasn't hard for him to believe her. He turned, hearing someone call his name as they walked in with a small group of people, and he waved at them. Eying the back of his head she tried to figure out what about him bothered her so much. She couldn't explain why, she just felt so _annoyed_ by him. It was like something was off about him..._fake._ She took another sip of her water.

Not long after the waiter came by with two wine glasses, placing them in front of the two and filling them as he asked if they were ready to order. They each told him what they wanted, and he walked off. Fera closed her eyes and took a large drink from the wine glass before setting it back down. Oh, how she hated being in this moment.

"It's not good to drink alcohol to soothe pain," Bruce said, trying his best at some sort of conversation.

"Why not? It dulls the pain." _Of being with you._ The thought was her voice, but dripped with an acid she wasn't familiar with. She shrugged it aside.

The billionaire watched her in silence, taking a moment here and there to sip at his wine. Something about her gnawed at him. He couldn't say she looked familiar—of course she did...but something was out of place. Gone was the sweetness he had witnessed before at the charity event; like there was a whole other side to her all of a sudden. It was almost as if she didn't want to be there right then. He voiced this.

"I'm not normally this...gruff." She admitted to him. "My brother has a habit of bringing me out of the house at awkward times, without regard for my mood, or preferred company. He is trying though."

At the look on the mans face she realized what she had said. "I don't want gobs of male attention," She clarified. "I want to go and hang out with some girls every once in a while. Go dancing, go to the park. _Something._" She felt herself blush at the confession and looked away from him, tucking her brown hair behind her ear. The sweet, frail sister seemed to be back again, as she vented the weight off of her chest.

"You're meals madam, and monsieur." The waiter addressed them, placing two plates of steaming food in front of them and walked off.

Brown eyes watched her as her own lit up at the sight of the food. Her soft smile grew, and she glanced at him shyly, waiting for him to eat first.

"Oh no, please, go ahead." He nodded at her, gesturing with the wine glass in his hand.

The silence was overwhelming as they ate, and she tried to think of something to say for conversation. Snippets of her dream from the night before ran through her head, something about Wayne Enterprises and a new kind of chemical they had acquired. Well, there was one topic.

"So, what all is happening with Wayne Enterprises?" She asked, feeling stupid as she tried to word it casually. He laughed gently at her, and sat back, chewing his food and swallowing it before he answered.

"Well. We order things, we make things, we sell things. You know, the usual kind of business stuff." He grinned at her. She looked down at her plate trying to hide the sudden red that had covered her face. Bruce leaned forward, serious. "No, but we did almost get robbed the other day." He admitted.

Fera looked up at him. "Really? What were they trying to steal?"

The play-boy chuckled, "Honestly, I don't know. Considering the culprit, it really seemed like a boy's prank."

"The culprit?" Her head ticked to the side, confused.

Bruce leaned forward, suddenly very interested in the conversation. "You see, all of our ware-houses have a very high-tech security system in them." He explained, talking with his hands as well. "No matter what they're storing, they all have the same high-grade system. Supposedly, the culprit went so far as to hack the system, and attempted to steal from our _decor _department."

"Well, you are Bruce Wayne. Surely you're decorations are some of the most expensive, and worth selling on the black market." Fera deduced simply.

"But it's _who _did it that gets me. It's so out of character for him to lower himself to such a status as a petty thief stealing things to be sold."

"And a prank is any lower?" She countered, still wondering who this culprit was.

"The thing about Joker, is that he has a message that he wants out there. He doesn't do things for petty self-gain, does he?" He leaned back and watched her as she thought. It was interesting to him to see what people thought of Gotham's villains and heroes.

She sat back, chewing her bottom lip. "No, I don't suppose he does." She said finally, thinking back on her dream.

**...**

Scarecrow sat in his car outside, parked just so that he could see them. He could tell the conversation was going nowhere. She wasn't flirting with him, nor him with her. She wasn't asking any questions relevant to what they needed to find out. He glanced down to the remote to the shock-garter. Time to speed things up a little.

…

Fera gritted her teeth together and did her best not to cry out as a sudden, gripping pain coursed through her body. She grabbed her head and cradled it, resting her elbows on the table. The feel of her eyes bulging was terrible. Bruce stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder. Faintly, she could hear him saying her name, trying to get her to respond; and then all at once the pain stopped.

He heard the woman gasp, breathing heavily. Her cheeks were red, skin damp where she'd begun to sweat. "Fera, are you okay? Do you need to go home?"

She shook her head and groaned. "Oh god, no. The last place I want to go is home. I'm sick of those _walls_."

"Then I'll take you back to my place, you need to rest." He quickly threw a large bill on the table and walked her out to his car.

**Alrighty, duckies! I am so excited about these next few chapters! I have so much to write and so little time to write it! I'll definitely be posting regularly for the next while! Keep in touch and please please please review! Tx!**

**- Fang**


	15. Progress

Fera groaned, laying down on the couch in the enormous living room of an enormous mansion. She tried not to let her eyes dart around in curiosity, having never been in a house so large before.

"Alfred!" Bruce called as he moved away from her and off to wherever he was going. He stopped in between that room and the next until Alfred arrived, and continued. "Will you get some migraine medicine for Ms. Crane please?"

"Of course Master Wayne," Alfred said smoothly, and he shuffled over to her, "Would you like some water with that as well, Ms. Crane?"

Fera nodded weakly without opening her eyes. Her head was pounding as though she were being slammed between two concrete walls. The old butler walked away, and she heard the faintest sound of water being poured way across the mansion, and pills being shaken from a bottle. A few minutes later the heard the clunk of glass on glass as he placed her water on the glass-topped coffee table in front of her.

"I hope this helps you, Ms. Crane." He said politely. She managed a weak thank you before sitting up and taking a swig of water and tossing the pill into her mouth. It only took a couple of minutes for her to fall asleep.

…

"_When you get inside I need you to search the house, as soon as you have a chance."_ _Jonathan Crane said this as he watched her put on the wig and normal clothing over her costume, passing her a bag of make-up as well. "Look for anything, files, vials; I don't care. Just find something."_

"_Alright, Dr. Crane." Rag Doll sighed, tucking a stray dread under her light brown, unstyled wig. "Would you like his autograph as well?" She chuckled at the stern look he gave her, looking down his glasses and pushing them up with one finger before turning around. _

"_Just don't come back without _something_."_

…

Rag Doll woke, sitting up fast and baring her arms. A few seconds ticked by as she realized that the only weapons she had were the blades inside her heels; that, and that no one else was there. The clock above the fireplace told her that it was almost three in the morning as she reminded herself that she was supposed to be Fera Crane without allowing her mind to switch completely into the persona. She sat up cautiously, walking slowly and lightly on her heels, not daring to take them off in case something were to go wrong.

She had to find the study. _Or at least one of them,_ she thought, looking around at the vastness of the mansion. She led herself down a slue of different hallways, opening every door that wasn't completely closed—which was quite a bit. Different scenarios ran through her head as she searched, planning out what to say if she were caught. Seeing as she had already passed the bathroom she couldn't very well say she was looking for one, plus if she were found in a study looking through everything... Would she strike him and run? No, that was too abrasive. Rag Doll sighed realizing her best option, and snarled a bit. He was the absolute definition of normal. Whatever insanity lurked inside of him would probably never find its way out.

Doll thought back to what Crane had said, about the chemical benefiting her as well. In a way, fear _did_ release insanity. Did he plan to give her a portion of the toxin? Her thoughts were pushed aside as she looked in the next room, seeing a large wrap around desk with two separate computer monitors and a mess of papers strewn across the top. Surely this was the one he used most.

Quietly, she sneaked inside and started to look through the papers on top first. She knew it was most likely not there, but she wanted to be thorough.

…

It had been almost three hours. She sat on the floor, feet tucked under her as she went through each individual paper in each drawer. _Receipts, invoices, random love letters...Dear God, she was getting nowhere. _Doll sighed and shifted, looking up at the pictures on the desk. One was of Bruce as a child, standing next to Alfred. Another of him with his parents. Her eyes followed a small trail of them around the desk, until she found herself facing the doorway again and gasped, reminding herself to put a hand to her heart and look shocked.

"Bruce, you scared me, I... well..." She felt herself blush as she looked around the office and down to the papers in her hands.

"Go on..." He said, lips in a tight line as he watched her, arms crossed.

Then the tears started to well up in her eyes. "Please don't be mad at me," she begged. "I just... I wanted to learn more about you, and...I didn't know what to ask..and I just...I wanted to know what to talk about..and I'm just.. I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne. Please don't think poorly of me!" Her voice had grown more panicked as she rambled, and began to cry. She didn't move except for her shuddering shoulders, and kept her eyes trained on the blurred papers in her hands.

Doll..._Fera_ didn't have to look up to see the shocked look on his face as he suddenly relaxed his stance. Hesitantly, he uncrossed his arms and knelt gently next to her, putting a finger under her chin and lifting her eyes to his. She pouted her lips and looked away.

"Fera...you did this, to get to know me?" He tilted his head into her field of view until she gave up and looked at him, nodding pathetically. Bruce moved his hand from her chin to her hair, lightly patting it to comfort her. "You don't have to do that to get to know someone."

It was all Doll could do not to grin behind Fera's charade as she looked away from him again. "But you _ flirt _with all of the other girls, and they know how to flirt _back_." She sobbed. "I can't be like them. I can't get someone as...as cool, and handsome, and nice as you to like me like you do them."

Doll swallowed, more to keep from vomiting than because of her tears, but it didn't matter. Bruce stood, holding his hand out to her, setting the papers back onto the desk with the other. She took his hand and stood. _Weakly,_ Doll reminded herself. She stumbled as he placed a hand in her hair, and kissed her forehead.

"You don't have to be like them," he told her. "You have my attention."

…

Fera had left with her shy smile in place, her cheeks burning as she returned his wave and climbed into the passenger's seat next to her brother. Lost in thought, he found himself watching her leave until they turned off somewhere far off in the distance, and then turned back into the house and closed the door. Now he knew what had been so off about her, at least he thought he did. In light of his new discovery though, something still didn't seem quite right. For a girl to think she had to do something so drastic, just to learn a man's interests...he wondered just how well her family had treated throughout the years, namely her father and brother.

Still, something about her, sitting there, crying over something like that...it struck a cord in Bruce. When she had looked up at him, her eyes pleading with him to understand... He sighed and shook his head. She was sweet, but she wasn't Rachel. Memories of the night she had died flooded his mind again and made his way to the piano upstairs. The off-tune notes rang out as the bookcase slowly swung open and he went down into the Batcave. He had to go over the security footage for himself and see exactly what had been said in that warehouse.


	16. Bying Time

**Please note that this chapter, the last, and some of the next ones are going to be a bit forced as I work them up to the point I want them to be at. My apologies, please bear with me!**

"You came back empty handed." Scarecrow noted. His eyebrow twitched behind his glasses, but his eyes stayed trained on the road as he drove.

Rag Doll tore off the wig, ripping the dress away from her and adjusting her costume. It was so nice to _breathe_. "I'm not entirely empty handed, Dr. Crane." She told him, and then went on to inform him of her new found relationship with Bruce Wayne.

"And _so,_"she continued, pushing up her imaginary glasses and pointing her nose up in the air, "We may not have the chemical as of right now, but in time I'm sure this relationship with Mr. Wayne will prove useful."

Crane continued to stare hard at the road, his lips in a tight line. Doll sighed and shifted in her seat to look at him. "I thought about what you said, about the chemical benefiting me as well, and I'm _going_ to get it. Joker be damned, I want it for _me._ I finally realized how you and I are alike." She laughed again at the look on his face and shook her head.

"Don't worry sweet doctor,"she purred and winked at him, "I'm done with my obsessions, Joker is _shit_ to me. I'm helping you because I see that we benefit each other and nothing more." She sat back into her seat and crossed her feet on the dash, then looked back at him, watching his reaction.

"And how exactly do we benefit each other, Miss Doll?" He asked finally, after a few moments of silence.

Her grin was slow, every aspect of her intent soaking into that one motion. "Fear releases insanity, doesn't it, Dr. Crane? And I want the world to accept that they are just as insane as the one's they've condemned into Arkham."

…

Jonathan Crane sat down at his desk and clicked on the desk lamp at the corner. Hands folded, he sat there in silence for a few minutes before he reached over to the stack of papers. His movements were robotic; he didn't really see the papers in front of him. Of course, he had expected it to take time to get to the chemical but not this long. Perhaps he should have gone after the chemical when he was first given the information. At the time though, he'd been too distracted with Rag Doll...with Elise.

His eyes moved from his paperwork over to the filing cabinet where he had a copy of her case files. So far he had learned nothing, and she was fast losing his interest. True, he still had no idea as to why she reacted the way she did to the toxin, but since Rag Doll had taken full dominance it was obvious that Rag Doll was how she contained her fear. Perhaps, with the creation of Rag Doll, she had completely lost all ability to be afraid.

The doctor chuckled lightly in the silence of the room. Of course she had a fear, he just hadn't found it yet. Or did insanity eliminate fear? He could hear her voice behind his thoughts, screaming at him in the tunnels of the asylum. _"You're crazy just like every. One. ELSE!"_ If he _were_ to give in to his insanity all the way, like she had, would he too be fearless? With a sigh, he sat back in his office chair, and rubbed his face with his hands. The possibilities were endless, but with that chemical he could find out.

The phone on his desk buzzed, disturbing the silence. Rag Doll had figured out how to text. He pushed his glasses back up onto his nose and picked up the phone to read the text.

**Bruce wants to pick up Fera.**

**TONIGHT.**

**What the hell am I supposed**

**to tell him?  
**

So she'd given him her number? He made a mental note to ask about that later. Currently he was trying to determine whether or not it was a good idea for Bruce to pick her up, and how exactly he was going to work that out. With a sigh, he replied back to the text, almost regretting the kind of freedom it implied, but at the same time not. It wasn't like he was really keeping her against her will anyways.

Scarecrow stared at the phone for another beat before returning to his own work, her voice again in the back of his mind._"I'm helping you because I see that we benefit each other, nothing more." _

…

Fera climbed into the passenger seat. Her hair was down again, for the most part, with only two bits of the sides of her hair pulled to the back for a small wrap-around bun. Her dress was a simple, short, strapless orange dress with a brown belt, and buttons going down in two columns in the middle. It was a little more casual than she had last worn around him. She was still wearing those red heels, as well.

Bruce shook his head, realizing he was just staring. He smiled at her and pulled out of the parking lot of the asylum.

"I'm sorry about this," she said, waving a hand at the building behind them and tucking her hair back behind her ear again. "My brother's so paranoid about people knowing where we live, what with it being in the Narrows and all."

"That's fine, I understand." He nodded, glancing at her from the road as he spoke. "So, those heels? You're always wearing them. What's so special about them?"

Rag Doll looked away, trying to look nervous to hide her falter. She fiddled with the skirt of her dress as she thought. What the hell was she supposed to say? Well, everyone had grandmothers.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to," Bruce said apologetically.

"Oh no, it's fine. It's just that, my grandmother gave them to me before she died, and...well. They're all I have left of her really." She glanced up at him seeing him nod in understanding.

"Oh, okay. That makes sense." And it was quiet again. He glanced at her again, wondering. Alfred had pressed so much for him to see to her again after hearing about what happened, but—.

A loud crash sounded, the tired screeched and Bruce tried hard to correct the wheel as he look towards what had caused the sudden impact, then at the road and stopped the car. Fera had braced herself almost instantly, one hand at the dashboard, the other against the door frame as she had turned to look out of her window.

A second too late she screamed, and Rag Doll cursed herself for not reacting as she should have. It was times like this that she almost missed Elise, who, having already been in full character, would have done exactly what was needed without question. At least this way she could keep her wits about her, there was always that. Elise would have had her killed already, somehow.

"Stay in the car, I'll be right back," Bruce instructed her as he climbed out and walked around the car. Doll tried not to roll her eyes. _Oh, my hero,_ she thought sarcastically, then felt herself grin as she realized the situation he had put himself in.

Clad in his signature purple jacket, the Joker painfully brought himself to an upright position just outside of her window. Almost instantly though, Bruce had grabbed both of his arms and slammed his head into the Joker's nose.

"_Oooowww!_ I'm not exactly the problem right now, sunshine!" The clown said, pointing to a figure down the street, but Bruce didn't look. Bruce reached out to grab him, but was swatted aside.

Rag Doll lost interest in watching the two after looking to where Joker had pointed, and seeing a horribly muscular man rushing towards them. _Should I say something?_ She thought, but decided it was pointless as he reached them only seconds after, shoving Bruce aside and grabbing the Joker by the back of his jacket and attempting to drag him off.

"I thank you for this my friend, but you are in the way," The muscular man said to him and turned his back, dragging Joker.

_Know your place, Bruce_. Doll sung in her head as she watched trying to see what happened next.

**Well, it'll be a bit before we find out, because I am tired and have to sleep! Lol My apologies, but I also need to figure out how exactly we're going to get out of this situation. Any ideas? Let me know! :D**


	17. Allys

Rag Doll's hand twitched, longing for the comfort of her oversized mallet. It made her ache to watch the fight before her knowing that she couldn't join in. She looked over the one with the mask again, taking in his bulging muscle—how she would love to fight _that _one. She tried not to let her emotion bleed into her face, and having to feign caring for Bruce made her experience that much worse. _Damn _that Doctor Crane for making Fera such a weak and helpless character! How badly she longed to see just how far the masked one's muscles could really go beneath her mallet...her blades. He might actually be a _challenge_ to fight. Damn this weak _bitch_!

Holding back the bile in her throat, Doll grabbed both sides of her face in mock-fear, shrieking as Bruce was lifted in a one-handed choke hold by the masked man. This was her chance! She'd wait until it was long enough for Bruce to have passed out, then "in a desperate attempt to save him" rush out. As long as he was passed out she wouldn't have to worry about any explanations. The only thing she regretted was having to keep him alive.

Behind her frantic, nervous, and frightened facade, Doll was grinning madly as she flung the car door open and rushed over to where the man held Bruce, slyly activating the switch that released the blades of her heels as she ran. As he looked down at her she made to reach for Bruce, tears streaming down her face, making sure his eyes were on her hands, and sliced out at his leg. She shoved an elbow into his jaw as he dropped the man in his hold, who dropped limply to the floor, his breathing shallow.

"Alright, sweetheart! Now that's what I like to see!" Joker called from behind the man, and she saw him jump up and wrap his arms around his neck, clinging like a child to a mother's leg and laughing like a mad man.

"Oh this is getting fu—," the Joker was cut off as Doll made her way behind the larger man and grabbed the clown by his hair, slamming him into the ground and stepping on his chest with the tips of her heels. She didn't feel like killing him just yet.

"_Stay. Out. Of my. FIGHTS!"_ She screamed, kicking him in the face as she yelled 'fights', and quickly ducked to dodge the masked one's next attack and made her way back in front of him. Glancing over she made sure that Bruce was still unconscious as she lashed out at her remaining opponent. Thankfully, Joker had decided to stay on the sidelines as well. He lay on the ground, propped up on his elbows, legs sprawled, as he watched her fight.

The fight went on for minutes, that felt like hours. Just when he thought he had her, she would slip out of his grasp and slice him yet again, yet no matter how much she had cut him—he didn't fall. He didn't wince. They allowed each other a seconds break, and stood there, staring, and breathing heavily. The man wiped at his cheek, though continued to remain on guard as he watched her.

"You are quite the fighter, for a small girl such as yourself," He noted, in an oddly pitched German accent. "I do not believe I've been given your name."

Doll smirked, and spit the blood from her mouth, keeping her eyes fixed on his as well. "Fera. Fera Crane," She lied. Behind her, the clown cackled. "And yours?"

"I am Bane." He said simply. A few moments of silence passed before he continued. "If you wish to continue to strike me, I _will_ retaliate, Fera Crane. But I no longer wish to continue this. I have other matters to attend to, so long as you help keep this _clown _out of my way, perhaps we may see each other as..._allies_. For lack of a better word."

Her eyes narrowed at him, and she cautiously relaxed her stance. Still, she stayed ready in case he changed his mind. "And why do you want to see me as an ally? I've been trying to bludgeon you to death for the past several minutes."

"We are equally matched in skill, and for you to match me despite your gender and..._status_...I find you quite admirable."

Doll laughed, then completely relaxed. "Admirable, you say? Alright, _Bane_. I won't strike you if you go, but I won't call you my ally just yet. Time will decide that for me." She tipped an invisible hat to him and watched him turn and walk off to where ever it was that he was going.

She glanced back over at Bruce. He still lay there unconscious, showing no signs of coming-to any time soon. Beside him—there was no one. Joker had apparently left at some point during the fight. Doll sighed and made her way to the passenger side of the car to retrieve her phone, deciding it would be better to go ahead and inform her dear brother of the horror that had occurred and ask him: _what ever _was she supposed to _do? _

Doll giggled at the sarcasm of her own thoughts, thankful just that she didn't have to fake caring for that disgustingly normal bastard, trying to play the hero. Then to tell her to stay in the car?

"Oh, wait!" She scoffed out loud, "He was _protecting _me! I should be _thankful_ for that!" She doubled over in a fit of laughter as she started to pull the car door open.

"Say, _sweetheart._ I can't help but think that I've..._met _you somewhere before," She heard the familiar voice of the Joker behind her as she was pushed into the car. The door shut. One of his hands was just above her at the top of the car, and his other arm was braced on her other side as he pressed into her.

"Son of a bitch." Doll cursed under her breath as she turned in the clowns hold and faced him. She forced an innocent smile on her face, her voice sickeningly sweet, "What gave it away, Jack?"

His face grew dark as he leaned in, close enough that she could feel his breath. "Don't call me that." He nodded downwards, "And it was the shoes. You'd better hope ol' Brucey boy didn't get a good look at them in the surveillance camera's," He licked the insides of his scars, exaggerating his expressions as he talked, "Or little Fera Crane's gonna be a bus-_tuh_."

Joker hung his head down and laughed at that, a heavy, wheezy kind of laugh where she could tell he was on the verge of a fit. She tried not to cringe at the smell of his breath. It was obvious that he was imagining the look on her's or Bruce's face as Rag Doll was revealed.

"Is that all, Joker? I have places to be, and preferably _before _Wayne wakes up." One hand reached behind her as she readied to open the car door again, but he didn't let up.

"_Geeze,_ Doll. What does a guy have to do to have a little cha_t _with you!" He complained, throwing his head back along with his body in a show of mock-distress—arms never leaving the car as he did so.

"He has to tell me where the _real _chemical is, if you'd really be that desperate." Doll crossed her arms, but didn't expect him to really tell her. If anything, he'd have her running in circles.

The clown looked at her out of the corner of his eye, pausing in his exaggerated show of emotion, as though she had suddenly piqued his interest. "Really? That's all?"

A sudden movement caught her attention, and she heard a pained groan sound from the side of the street. Bruce was waking up already.

Doll started to wail suddenly, straightening her wig, and then began to claw and pound at the Joker's chest. "Please, get away from me, it hurts!" She cried, making sure that her blades were hidden back into her heels. "Bruce, help me! Please be okay, Bruce, _please_!"

"You cheeky _dick-waffle_!" The clown said to her in an undertone, one hand at her throat as he shook her. She didn't try anywhere near as hard as she usually did to defend herself, and pathetically picked at the hand he'd wrapped around her neck.

"Bruce..." She called between sobs before 'breaking down' into full blown hysterics. When she tried to look at where he'd lain she couldn't tell if he was gone, or she just wasn't turned far enough.

"You can do so much better than this, _Fera_," Joker sneered at her. Maybe he just didn't register the shadow looming behind him, or maybe he didn't care. Still, his eyes were slowly rolling into the back of his head as his grip loosened and he fell to the ground on his side. Behind him, stood Bruce holding a broken piece of cinder block that Doll guessed had been lying in one of the near-by alley ways.

"Oh my god, Bruce...that was horrible. What the hell just happened? I thought you were _dead_," She continued to ramble as she fell into him, clinging to his sweater for dear life as she felt him return her hold. Then he pulled back and looked at her face, taking in the cuts and bruises on her face and arms, and her busted lip.

"I should be asking you the same thing," he said softly, running his thumb just below her lip. "What did they do to you?"

She sobbed harder, tearing her face from his grasp and burying it into his chest. "Please don't make me think about it, it was so _awful_."

Bruce shushed her, rocking gently back and forth as he patted the back of her head, "I won't Fera. It's okay, I won't ask. Just calm down...everything's going to be okay."

It was all Doll could do not to grin as she felt everything begin to work itself out.

…

It had taken Bruce quite a while to calm Fera down and get her to sit down in the car while he tended to her wounds, using the first-aid kit that he kept in his glove box. She insisted on having her come by and pick her up, being unable to stand the headache that had been brought on by how badly they had beaten her and the stress of the situation. No matter how much he had insisted though, she refused to go to a hospital, and who was he to say? He couldn't make her go.

It wasn't long before Jonathan Crane pulled up next to them, rushing out of his car and over to his sister. He didn't say a word as he looked her over, fingers hovering over every bruise. Finally, he turned to Bruce.

"She couldn't tell you what they did to her, could she?" He asked, knowingly.

Bruce shook his head. "No, when I asked she went into hysterics. I left it alone. Dr. Crane, I'm so sorry that I let this happen to her. Between Bane and Joker, I'm amazed she's even alive, but I can't get her to go to the hospital." He looked at her, sitting in the car seat with her legs hanging out of the car. Her eyes were squinted shut as though it would help deafen her to what they were discussing.

"All of her necessary medication is at home," Crane said not taking his eyes off of her. "I will have our family physician have a look at her and determine whether or not a trip to the hospital is even necessary as she looks well enough to avoid it. I thank you for taking this much care of her Mr. Wayne. As you said, between Bane and Joker both, it is a wonder that she's still alive..."

Not long after, Bruce watched as Jonathan Crane carefully helped her sister into his car, handing her a bottle of medicine and a bottle of water before going over to the driver's side and starting the engine.

"Thank you again, Mr. Wayne, for keeping my sister alive. I don't know what I would have done had things turned out any worse." And they left. Fera waved out of her window after they'd turned around to head back towards their home, managing a soft smile to Bruce as they passed him.

Alone in the darkness, he sighed, hurrying to get into his own car and go home before anything worse happened to him that night.

…

**And that's all for tonight! I'll do my best to get the next chapter out sooner tomorrow night, but in the mean time, let me know what you think so far! Please review! All of you readers sitting there thinking it doesn't make a difference, it really does, I promise. And the more I feel like you all are honestly enjoying Rag Doll and her adventures, the more I'll feel inspired to write that much more! Thank you each and every one of you, reviewers or not! **

**Btw, credit goes to Takahata101 and the rest of his youtube friends for the "You cheeky Dick-waffle" line, taken from Helsing Abridged, (best abridged yet). :) Thank you!**


	18. A New Friend

**Rag Doll has her own facebook page now! Help her build it with friends! Oh, and our good Doctor has a page as well. **

**Rag Doll: **

** /disgustingfangirl**

**Dr. Crane: **

** /pages/Dr-Jonathan-Crane/162041166867**

Doll woke up inside the old lab room. It's blazing white walls made her want to shield her eyes. When she tried to move and found she couldn't. Dr. Crane had restrained her to a simple wooden chair, in the middle of the room. Her legs were also tied.

It was hard to remember the last thing that had happened. After getting into the car with Dr. Crane, he'd pulled out a bottle of aspirin telling her to keep up the charade for Bruce. Tasting the inside of her mouth, she realized it hadn't been aspirin she'd taken. Someone cleared their throat, and she looked up to see Scarecrow leaning against the wall, next to the two-way mirror. His arms and ankles were crossed in a lax position.

He didn't look at her at first, but looked down the floor as though trying to hide his expression at the moment, then he pinched the bridge of his nose in thought. Doll noticed he was wearing his glasses again. His feet kept twitching, not tapping, but not jerking around either. Impatient.

Finally, he looked at her, cocking his head to the side. "You gave Bruce Wayne your number." He said simply.

Rag Doll didn't even try to hide the look of pure amazement on her face. "You restrained me to a chair, because I gave a guy my number? What the _fuck_?" Her laugh was hysteric and angry.

The doctor rolled his eyes. "This isn't about that, I just wanted to make a point—."

"Well your point was lost!" She laughed.

"You're restrained because I don't know quite what I want to do with you yet." He uncrossed his arms and started to pace around her, keeping his eyes in the direction of his path as he spoke. "I allow you the freedom to leave on your own, trust you with your excuses, even told you the code to the weapon safe, and you used that freedom to run off and pick a fight with not only the Joker, but _Bane_? How did you manage to survive that and _still_ leave Bruce Wayne thinking that your frail Ms. Fera?"

"Frail Ms. Fera is right. I was so _bored_ until Bruce got knocked out, he tried to make me stay in the car for crying out loud! And stupid _Fera_ had to, just to get close to him." She tilted her head back as far as she could to see the doctor as she spoke. "But I didn't pick that fight, _sweet doctor._ Bane did when he flung the clown into the car. Weren't you going to ask me about what all happened, or did you honestly think what you consider 'freedom' to have made a difference to me?"

Grinning, she continued to face him as he walked in front of her and knelt down beginning to undo the restraints. Again, he seemed calm, no traces of him being angry before. Just as he was pulling the leather strap out from the buckle, he paused, and put it back, strapping it just as tight as it had been. Then he stood, hands in his pockets, and pushed his glasses back up with a single finger.

"Before I release you, I would like to ask you one more thing...what happened to Elise?"

Rag Doll cackled hysterically, tears forming in her eyes. "Awww, Jonathan! Are you _scared_!" She teased, remembering how he had remained behind the glass of the two-way mirror the last time he had dared to say that name.

"_Elise_ was the one who tried to hide behind _me_. I was her confidence, her strength. In the end, I was her death. Do you understand, Dr. Crane? Elise is gone, and she's not coming back." She looked over his stiffened demeanor, the astonished look in his eye that he couldn't hide. She grinned, slyly. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Crane swallowed hard. The thoughts running through his head made it impossible for him to consider how he looked at that moment. It seemed his mouth had gone dry, and he traced his tongue around the edge of his bottom lip before he spoke again, trying to keep his demeanor professional. "Can you..." He thought of how to best word it, and sighed, stealing a glance at the girl. "Can you _remember_ what she did? Her life, her thoughts...what she feared?"

"Why Dr. Crane? Did she interest you that much?" The Doll teased, winking at him.

Crane adjusted his shirt at the collar, and rolled his shoulders. "She gave erratic responses to my toxin, and seemed to be immune in a way that no one else has. I merely wish to understand what could have possibly prevented her from reacting."

"Did you ever stop to think that maybe it was biological? I'm sure you've seen worse cases in the Asylum." Rag Doll dead panned.

"Biology doesn't exactly cause that kind of reaction, Rag Doll. But now that I see that you are calm..." He knelt down and began to undo the restraints again, letting the action finish his sentence.

Minutes later Doll stood from the chair rubbing her wrists. She nodded in thanks to Scarecrow, but made no move to go anywhere.

"You're free to do whatever you would like now, as I'm sure you've figured out. No guards, no hiding your weapons. I trust you'll keep your end of the deal and I'll give you a portion of what turns out from the addition of the chemical." He stepped back and gestured to the door.

"Gee wiz, thanks Doc!" Rag Doll said childishly, clasping her hands together by her head, "Well I'm off now. Don't worry, I'll be back before dark. Or sunrise. Which ever is next." And she turned and skipped out of the door, making sure to wave good-bye before swinging out of it and making her way outside.

…

Rag Doll didn't get home before sunrise. It was a couple of days before she returned to her room, and found that the surveillance camera had been removed. Most of her time had been spent roaming the Narrows, going through different ware-houses abandoned or not. Some of the items she went through, and some she didn't—of course she only went into the one's with no security system or cameras, which was only the run down ones that weren't worth much anyways.

While searching though, Rag Doll found one that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. Maybe it was due to the charred walls and destroyed product she'd also found inside it, but who knew? And of course, it was only natural that she go through what hadn't been completely destroyed in the fire. When she got bored of going through boxes, she had gone and drawn a huge of Raggedy Anne in the soot, by way of marking her territory. She walked home slowly and kept to the shadows, memorizing the way there.

Today of course, she was grabbing some of her things. Not to move in to the place, but she was grabbing small things. In example, the Raggedy Anne lamp and some of her dolls. There had been a box full of different blankets in the ware-house that she planned to use as a make shift bed, and some old fashioned wire-framed mannequins that she planned on using for her "normal person" costumes and wigs. The one's that she didn't wear as much. Maybe she'd use them to leave her ware-house _incognito_. Oh yes. She liked saying "her ware-house", it had a nice ring to it.

As soon as she had finished packing she glanced over at the costume she had laid out and started to put it on. The long brown hair had been separated into two low pig-tails, and the big nerdy glasses didn't really have anything in them, only the rims. She put on a black pleated skirt and white button up with a black sweater over-top, then some black socks. She considered the shiny black penny-loafers, knowing that they would finish the outfit, but decided not to go without her heels. Before she left she grabbed some food and some sodas from her mini-fridge, juggling them on top of her things. A piece of bologna hung out of her mouth as she chewed it carefully so that it wouldn't fall.

She still tried to go unnoticed through the streets and keep to shadows, but it was a lot harder to do with a huge stack of random items, not even contained in a box. Luckily though, she made it back to the ware-house without any problems, and pushed the small side door closed with her foot.

The moment the door clicked shut, she dropped all of her stuff at a random spot on the floor and tore off the wig. She sighed happily and breathed in the stale, dusty air of the ware-house.

Something skittered, sounding panic stricken, a low thud told her it had hit the wall on the far side of the factory floor. She made her way around the boxes and found a small girl, about twelve or thirteen curled up into a ball, hands on her head, whimpering. Her long, snow white hair fell to her hips and her eyes were squinted shut, showing only long, wet lashes above soft pink cheeks and full lips. Her white, boat-cut t-shirt was smudged and dirty, several snags and holes were on the shoulders and sides. The jeans she wore were the same with several grass stains, dirt smudges, and tear spots. It was like she'd rolled around in barbed wire. Her bare feet were cut and bloody.

"Please, please don't hurt me, I didn't see anything, I swear, I _promise_, please don't hurt me I'll do anything." The girl sat there, rambling, begging for her life. She didn't look up once.

Rag Doll knelt down to the girl's level and reached out, grabbing her chin. The girl flinched and shivered uncontrollably. Silently, Doll turned her head from side to side examining the bruises on her pale skin. One was especially dark on her chin, where she held her, but the little girl didn't flinch or whimper at the pain. Only in fear.

"You'll do anything, huh?" She asked the girl, eye-brow raised. The girl nodded vigorously, not daring to look away from Rag Doll's eyes. Doll got up and went over to her things, picking up the wig and wig-cap throwing it to the girl, then sifted through some of the things she'd brought with her, tossing the girl a new set of clothes, and a bag of make-up.

"Put all of this on. I have food and drinks with me. When I come back tomorrow afternoon I want you to have fixed this place up so that it's comfortable. I'll bring more food then, and something to store it with." She looked at the girl, refusing to identify the emotion inside her as empathy, and handed her the berretta. "Shoot to kill. And don't you _ever_ let me hear you say any bullshit about doing anything for anyone I don't care what you've seen or done. Say it again and _I_ will kill you myself. Understood?"

The girl's hands wrapped tightly around the small gun and she nodded her head some more, wiping the tears away from her eyes. "Stop crying. In a place like Gotham, the weak are the first to die. You cuss those bastards to the end." Rag Doll took a deep breath and breathed out in a huff, finished with her spiel of advice and turned to the door.

Remembering the blankets she walked over to the giant box of them, it was large enough to be its own giant bed. She pointed to it with her thumb as she left. "You can sleep on those, too."

"How do I know I can trust you?" The girl finally asked, just before Doll closed the door.

"You don't. That's your call." Doll told her simply, and shut the door to the ware-house before returning to her room in the asylum. She suddenly couldn't stop thinking about Henry Hancock and the daughter he had destroyed, and wondered whether or not she should have just killed the girl on the spot.


	19. Hungry

Doll had stayed up all night thinking about everything that had happened recently. This girl would be more useful than she had realized. She found her phone and texted Dr. Crane, inquiring about the latest information he'd found on the drug.

**I have a name. **

**XDM. It works**

**almost like Devil's**

**Breath, so I've**

**been told, while**

**increasing an **

**individuals **

**threshold for pain.**

**I assume you have**

**a lead?**

Doll laughed and sent her reply.

**Nope.**

**Just wondering.**

She then hurried out of bed and put on her Fera disguise, heading out to her warehouse in simple khakis and a shirt. The windows of the warehouse had been ablaze with light when she neared it. Wondering just how the girl had managed it, Doll stepped inside, turning and closing the door behind her. Candles lined the walls and rafters in the ceiling. The place looked nice. Most of the boxes had been lined up against the wall. Some of them, the girl had managed to make into make-shift furniture, throwing the many quilts over them to provide for cushioning. It reminded Rag Doll of a child's play-house.

Out of curiosity, Doll went over and started to lift the quilt up and look under the cardboard to see just what had been holding it up. Cinder blocks. Something metallic rattled loudly, and she heard the girls feet pitter-pattering towards her and looked up. The excited look on the girls face died when she looked and saw that Doll had brought nothing with her, but she said nothing.

"I'll see to it that you get food," she told the girl. "In the mean time—those people who bruised you up, who were they?"

The girl shrugged, "They took me away from my family, but I didn't know them." She didn't continue, only rubbed one arm nervously. The look in her eye told Rag Doll she wanted to talk about it more, but there wasn't time for that.

"Well, for right now, you're family is dead. Not to say they are, but we're going to say that they are. The people who kidnapped you, did it to get information out of your father. Something called XDM, but you don't know anything about it."

The girl nodded, taking in the information before a look of sudden disbelief crossed over her face. "You want me to _lie_?"

It was all Doll could do not to roll her eyes in disgust at the girls innocence. "You said you would do anything. Trust me, we're not hurting anyone. Besides, you trusted me this far."

"Well, yeah...but...what _is _XDM anyway?"

Rag Doll smirked. "My brother is a doctor, and he believes that this will help to further improve his medicine."

"And you plan on having me help you steal it, don't you?"

She couldn't help it. Doll rolled her eyes and looked at the girl. "Yes. I do. It's not something I can just walk up and ask for or, believe me, I would have already done it. Now, do you want to eat, or don't you?"

At the mention of food again, the girls stomach rumbled, and she looked away embarrassed. Rag Doll pulled out her phone and began to lead the girl outside and the two started to walk down the street. The other line only rang once before he answered.

"Fera! Hey. I thought I'd scared you off." Bruce answered, surprisingly excited.

Doll tried not to retch, and instead smiled. "No, you couldn't do that," she said sweetly, "But Bruce I have a huge favor to ask." She paused nervously and continued. "I found a girl who needs a place to stay, she can't be older than twelve or thirteen. It won't be very long, I promise. I'm going to talk to my brother about her staying with us, I just...well, you know how he can be."

"Yeah, just tell me where you are and I'll come and get you both."

She told him where they were in the Narrows, explaining that she had just been wandering around when she found the girl, agreed to wait for him, and hung up.

"What's your name?" The girl asked a few minutes later, as they still sat waiting. Her voice was soft, innocent, a feather against a veil.

This thought startled Rag Doll, and again she thought of Elise, who she had been before. She shook her head and looked away from the girl. "Fera Crane." Her eyes stayed dead ahead on the road.

"Oh..." The girl mumbled and kicked her feet. Then looked up at Doll in a child-like excitement—hopeful, "Well, I'm Paige. Just...Paige."

It was hard to ignore the disappointed look on her face. Something inside of her pulled at the emotion; it made her want to comfort the girl, and protect her. No matter what she did though, she couldn't shake off the image of Elise that slowly morphed itself into the girl—into Paige, beside her.

Before her thoughts had gone any farther, Rag Doll found herself pulled from them as a sleek black aston martin pulled in front of them and the passenger side window rolled down to reveal a worried Bruce Wayne.

"Hurry up and get in."

Fera ran a soft, protective hand across Paige's back before the girl got into the car and she followed. She smiled shyly at Bruce. "Thank you for this, I was so worried about Paige, especially being in the narrows and all." It wasn't an admission, it was something Fera was expected to say. Behind them, Paige was quite, hands on the seat and watching her toes. She glanced up occasionally to look at Bruce.

"It's no problem at all." Bruce waved it off. "But what were _you _ doing wandering around here either? Not that I'm not glad you found Paige and we could help her, but I'm surprised both of you didn't get hurt."

Fera didn't have anything to say in response, she only glanced back at Paige with a look of concern, and then to her lap where she fiddled with her fingers. Bruce sighed and looked at her from the road. "I'm not scolding you, Fera. I'm not your father, or your brother. But you scared me, especially after what happened the last time I saw you. Joker has a habit of following up on people who get caught up with him."

_Don't I know it,_ Doll thought darkly, trying not to let the thought cross her face. On the outside, she said, "You're right Bruce, but I just had that _feeling_ that I should go out there, and now look." Again, Fera smiled back at Paige, who looked at her confused, and gave a shaky smile back. She wasn't sure about Fera's new found show of emotion.

In the rear-view mirror, Bruce also looked back at the girl. He remembered the first day he had met Fera—the way she had watched the children from the orphanage. It was no wonder she had been so protective of the girl she had just found.

"So, Paige, how are you feeling now?" He asked her, smiling, trying to make her feel more comfortable.

"I feel good," She smiled back, and her stomach growled loudly. Her eyes avoided his and she blushed. Fera had said she'd make sure that she would get food, but now, looking into this man's eyes, she was embarrassed to let him know she was hungry. But when she had built the nerve to look back at him, he was still smiling at her from the rear-view mirror.

"Come on, we'll all go get something to eat."


End file.
